Anyone want to take a stab at figuring out Mary (Cherry) Jenkins?

Question

As I've been meandering through and improving various Powell profiles I came upon Mary (Cherry) Jenkins who is currently listed as married to three different Jenkins men and having 26 children without a good source in sight. I'm pretty sure something has gone wrong and she's been incorrectly merged or something. Would anyone have the time to untangle her? The only info I have on the Jenkins comes from the site I'll link below. The daughter of James Jekins and Mary Cherry is supposed to have married Cader Powell Jr. and there's some records pertaining to the Jenkins transcibed on the site, however it's mostly Powell info so I think a good bit of further research will be needed:

https://sallysfamilyplace.com/cader-powell-elizabeth/

Answer 1

In the North Carolina Historical and Genealogical Register, Vol. II, p. 342, there's a will abstract for John Jenkins, 8 Feb 1779.  Mentions wife Mary; sons Zadock, Charles, Riddick, Irvin, Ephraim, Isaac; daughters Winnie, Sarah, Kesiah Jenkins; son Abram, William Cherry and James Jenkins exrs. Test. John Jenkins, Isaac Jenkins, Milly Howard, Debby Jones.

This seems to be for the above profile, as many of the children named have profiles attached to Mary.  There are numerous duplicates, so I'll start proposing merges.  Perhaps we can get it figured out!  I'll look for some other sources as well with regard to the other spouses attached.

Comments

I located what appears to be Mary's will (based on the death date shown on her profile, which was the same date as the date of her will).  She left everything to her son James and his wife.

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There's a book entitled, "The Cherry Families of Early Norfolk County, Virginia and Northeast North Carolina."  See here for links to the various sections.  From the time I've spent on this family since coming across this G2G post, this family could use a lot of attention.  It would be great if someone related to this line would work on it.

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I continued working on this family through the day and evening yesterday.  I have sorted through various relationships and attempted to connect people to their proper parents.  In researching, I discovered that almost everyone that has Mary Cherry in their tree has not a single source for her.  One problem is that brothers John and James Jenkins each married a woman named Mary.  Some records (unsourced) have John married to Mary Cherry, while others have James married to her.  And numerous sources mention a Mary Barnes.  I located a will of Mary Barnes' father which mentions his grandson Isaac Jenkins.  You would hope that this would tell us which Jenkins (John or James) married Mary Barnes -- but no such luck!  Both John and James had a son named Isaac.

At this point I've got James married to Mary Barnes and John married to Mary Cherry (as it was when I came along).  But I've not located a marriage record for either marriage.  I have, however, located various wills to sort out the many children that were connected to Mary Cherry.  I think, however, that she may only be the mother of James, since he is the only child she mentions in her will, whereas her husband's will mentions many children.  This leads me to believe that Mary was a second wife.  I will leave this mystery to some Jenkins descendants.  Time for me to move on to another family for a 'random act of genealogical kindness.'  

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You are an amazing person with mad skills and a good heart.

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Thank you! Great work!