Joseph Sears was born Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 29 November 1711,[1] the son of William Sears and his wife, Elizabeth White.[2]
Some believe he may have been the man who went to Canada as a loyalist during the American revolution.[3]
Was he Rebecca Rayment's husband?
As below, while a prior version of this profile reported this Joseph Sears was the father of William Sears (1733-abt.1805), thus the man who married Rebecca Rayment 1732/3, historical records that would confirm such relationships are not known.
In the author's personally annotated version of his 1890 work on the Sares/Sears families, Samuel P. Mays commented on Joseph Sears, born 1711, at least four times. See Samuel P. Mays, The Descendants of Richard Sares (Sears) of Yarmouth, Mass. 1638 - 1888 (Albany, N.Y.: Joel Munsell's Sons, 1890); digital images, Hathi Trust. For this text and reportedly the author's handwritten notes regarding the families, see InternetArchive and especially, "Appendix: Other Families of Sears," at 569, 615 and 615+, 618 (2nd sheet); digital images, InternetArchive, courtesy of L. Ray Sears and Rick Pierpont.
In one of his annotated entries about Joseph, born 1711, May noted the Beverly 1732/3 published intention of a Joseph Sears to marry Rebecca Rayment. May struck through his comment that she was the daughter, born 1694, to Nathaniel and Rebecca (Conant) Rayment, but went on to comment that Joseph "had William, Sep. 17, 1733."
Separately, a review of Rayment family records, particularly the probate records of Rebecca's father Nathaniel, and her siblings Benjamin and Elizabeth, leave little doubt that William's mother was the Rebecca Rayment, born 1694 to Nathaniel Rayment;
Lacking other sources of information about William and Elizabeth's son, Joseph, born 1711, it seems unlikely that in his early 20s, he would have married a woman 17 years his senior. Moreover, Rebecca (Rayment) Sears was reported a widow in the 1760s, so if William and Elizabeth's son was the man who survived to become a loyalist during the Revolutionary War, then he was unlikely her husband and the father of her son, William Sears (1733-abt.1805).
The association of William Sears (1733-abt.1805) as the son of this Joseph Sears was severed in 2022.
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[*] How a man who died in 1779 could be evacuated in 1783 is not highlighted or explained.
edited by GeneJ X
See Charla Woodbury, James Hamlin and Gene Preston, "Identifying Judith Finne and the Early Family of William^2 (William^1) Woodbury of Stepney, Middlesex, England, and Beverly, Massachusetts," The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 176 (2022):138-148; digital images by subscription, via pdf download, AmericanAncestors.
Rebecca was born in Beverly, Essex, Massachusetts Bay, 20 November 1694, the daughter of Nathaniel Raymond and Rebecca Conant. Then both of Beverly, she married in Ipswich, Essex County, 30 January 1732, Joseph Sears of Beverly.
The only child known born to this couple was William Sears, born Beverly, 17 September 1733.
Rebecca would have been 17 years the senior of a man born in 1711. Moreover, she was reported a widow on 1 July 1769 and was almost certainly widowed by 13 April 1761 (styled as an heir, no spouse, on a listing of heirs).
Given that no other children were recorded to Joseph and Rebecca (Rayment) Sears, she may have been widowed much earlier--in any event, long before the time when the man born in 1711 would have relocated to Canada to be a loyalist in the American Revolutionary War.
Unless there are historical records that would otherwise explain this family, how should we handle what seem the different men, Joseph Sears--one being Rebecca's husband/William's father, and the other being a man who survived to be a loyalist at Canada during the war? -- Gene
edited by GeneJ X