Lydia Bishop (b. 1701) was the daughter, according to the Manchester, MA Vital Records, of John and Annah Bishop. I haven't been able to find more than circumstantial evidence to prove the identity of her father, John Bishop.
I have found a John Bishop in the Manchester VR of the right age to be her father, born in 1667, the son of Thomas Bishop and Lydia Norman. That John Bishop does not appear to have an existing profile here. He was alive and in Manchester in 1694, when Thomas died there, since he played a significant role, with his brother, Richard, in settling his father's estate. If he was Lydia Bishop's father, he was married by 1695, since the first child he registered in Manchester was born in October of 1695. There seems, however, to be no record of his marriage in Manchester and I have been unable to identify his wife, Anna/Annah.
Lydia (Bishop) Knowlton's father, John Bishop, a cooper, died in Manchester in 1730. His probate papers include a will which lists, among his daughters, Lydia Knowlton. His wife, who survived him, was named Anna. Lydia had married Robert Knowlton in 1724. (The will link goes to AmericanAncestors.org - subscription)
Suggestively, John Bishop, Lydia's father, named a son Richard, which was also the name of the brother of John Bishop, son of Thomas. The mother of John Bishop, son of Thomas, was Lydia - carried forward to John's daughter?
In short, I have found nothing to prove that John Bishop, a cooper of Manchester who was Lydia (Bishop) Knowlton's father and who died in 1730, was the son, John, of Thomas Bishop, born in Manchester in 1667.
All of the evidence I've found is in the Research Notes section of Lydia's profile.
Does anyone have a suggestion for determining whether these two John Bishops are actually the same person?
Do I have enough evidence to create a profile for Thomas Bishop's son, John, and add to it what I've found for Lydia's father, linking it then to her and using her father's date of death?
Edit (11 May 2018): Sidney Perley, editor of The Essex Antiquarian (vol. 8 (1904), p. 126) apparently reached the conclusion that Thomas's son and Lydia's father were the same John Bishop.
