Did Mary Barker ever exist?

+7 votes
551 views
The unsourced profile of Mary Barker was apparently created to supply a mother for Thomas Chappell-74, whose father is considered to be John Chapell-48 but may not be. Mary's father was apparently supposed to be William Barker-3192, but his profile shows no daughter Mary. Mary has been detached from incorrect parents.

There is no record of her birth or her marriage. The 1611 marriage in Kent alleged to John Chapell was apparently to a John Upton.

Was Mary Barker a fiction created to supply a mother to immigrant ancestor Thomas Chappell?
WikiTree profile: Mary Chappell
in Genealogy Help by Lois Tilton G2G6 Pilot (170k points)
retagged by Lois Tilton

3 Answers

+9 votes

The baptism cited for Thomas Chappell in Northamptonshire is very doubtful.  Just written a comment on his profile. 

by Helen Ford G2G6 Pilot (462k points)
Yes it is. Which is to say that it conflcts with the 1611 birth in Gravesend, but that may be based on an imaginary Barker.

People have been making stuff up.
+9 votes
The passenger list for Thomas Chappell's voyage to Virginia in June 1635 cited on his profile (reference 2) gives his age as 33. A birth year of around 1602 means that neither of the cited baptisms (1611 and 1615) are for this Thomas Chappell. (Also the ship he travelled in was the "America" rather than the "Speedwell" stated on his profile).

A birth year of 1602 means that the current linked father John Chappell-48 would have been 12 years old at Thomas' birth.

The master of the "America" was William Barker, the profile previously linked as Mary's father. with a birth year of 1590, he cannot have been John Chappell's grandfather. But perhaps someone linked them because of this.
by Jo Fitz-Henry G2G6 Pilot (169k points)
Nor could he have been her father, if her birth date were 1594, as per her profile.
I would suggest making her Unknown (Unknown) Chappell born before 1586 (to make her at least 16 when John was born) in England. Just because John embarked at Gravesend, Kent doesn't mean that either he or his parents lived there.
+2 votes
Mary Barker Chappell is my 10th great grandmother. Her birth date is shown on her profile (1594). She was married to John T. Chappell my 10th g grdfather. I posted the correct sources on her profile. She is the daughter of Wulliam Barker and Elizabeth Langhorne.
by Larry Kuka G2G Crew (740 points)
So was she born in Kent (per the profile) or Norfolk (per the single inadequate source given)?  You will note that that citation given for her baptism gives no year date. There

The sources from Yates publishing and Ancestry family trees are unreliable because unsourced. These are not acceptable for 16th-century profiles. There were probably numerous Mary Barkers born in England over those centuries with parents William and Elizabeth. How do we know this is the correct one?

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