Lookup Needed: Howland "Silver Book" Mayflower Families 5 gens.

Question

There is a merge pending between Brown-57742 and Brown-1102.  He had two wives according to the profiles.

The first wife Elizabeth according to town records died in 1725 at the age of 27, so born 1698. The problem becomes that she would only have been 13 when her first child was born, which seems very young.

Her husband William should be in the Howland "Silver Book" Vol 23 pt 1. and we need a lookup.

? 1. Was her surname Long?
? 2. Does it make any mention of the fact that she was young or comment on her age at death in the records?
? 3. Is the information on Brown-1102 basically correct?

Comments

There was an Elizabeth Long, born in 1698 in Nantucket, who married Benjamin Estes. She is the only Elizabeth Long I have found who was born between 1690-1700 in Massachusetts

Answer 1

It does not give any surname for Elizabeth (just lists her as Elizabeth _________) and says she died at Rehoboth 27 April 1725, in her 27th year. I will be happy to fill in  some of the empty citations on his profile, the information listed there conforms to what the Silver Book says.

Comments

Does it say anything about her marrying young?

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No, it only references her date of death and that she was "in her 27th year."

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Thank you Jen and yes please fill in the empty citations.

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I wonder if it was supposed to say 37th year, instead of 27th year.

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I also wondered if her age at death was wrong.

Answer 2

It is unusual to marry that young, but not unprecedented. I just completed a profile for a woman who married when she was 14. (The marriage license says she was 19, but she was born in 1924 and married in 1938, so you do the math.) For at least two years the couple lived with her parents, as can be seen in the 1940 Census. Ingold-546 Her husband was 19, but the marriage document says he was 22. So, they were both fudging on their ages.

Comments

I think there's a vast difference between society in 1920s North Carolina and 1700s New England, but a marriage at age 13 would not have been condoned in either era. On top of this is the fact that we can't find any reliable source for the surname of Long so it appears to be a mistake.

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Jerry Lee Lewis married a 13 yr old young cousin  . Parents approval goes a long way when times are hard .

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Ok, but we're talking about the early 1700s. We're looking for sources specific to this woman that would suggest that a marriage at the age of 13 is likely in an area and time when the usual age of first marriage is 18-21, not adolescence.

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Bobbie, I doubt it was likely. The question is, was it possible? The answer to that question needs to be based on evidence, not supposition. Unfortunately, marriage records of that time frame are rare at best.

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Bobbie, I think you are making unwarranted assumptions. For example, according to Wikipedia: "The minimum marriage age was 12 years for females and 14 years for males under English civil law that applied until 1753. By default, these provisions became the minimum marriage ages in colonial America."

That statement is sourced to B. Dahl, Gordon (2010). "Early Teen Marriage and Future Poverty". Demography. 47 (3): 689–718. doi:10.1353/dem.0.0120. PMC 3000061. PMID 20879684.

What we think is not nearly as consequential as what we can prove through sources.

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Paul, the question was: Was this specific woman's full name given in the Mayflower Families through 5 generations. No it wasn't. Was her full name given in any contemporary documents. Not that we've found so far. The likelihood that she was the Elizabeth Long, who she seems to be currently represented as and who would have been age 13 at marriage, cannot be supported. I make no 'unwarranted assumptions,' and look to my own dataset which shows me that age at 1st marriages in New England for the late 1600s and early 1700s was generally between 18-22 for women, with the average in my data at 20.3 years. Age at first marriage at 13 years is only one of the factors in questioning the identification of this wife.