| Elizabeth (Unknown) Pierce migrated to New England during the Puritan Great Migration (1621-1640). Join: Puritan Great Migration Project Discuss: pgm |
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This profile originally stated: Frederick Clifton Pierce, Esq.'s book "Pierce Genealogy", published in 1882, had Thomas Pierce Sr. married to an Elizabeth Wortington; either an alternate name for Elizabeth Carew, another wife of Thomas Pierce Sr., or an error subsequently corrected.
However, the book does not actually say that. It only names her as "his wife Elizabeth Pierce" and states that she was born in England in 1596/96. No specific source is given, and it is not clear if the author means that her maiden surname was also Pierce but he does not claim Worthington, Carew or any other surname for her.[1] So whatever F.C. Pierce's mistakes, he does not claim a surname nor does he assert a death date or location or say anything else at all about her origins other than she came with her husband Thomas to Charlestown in 1633/34.
Regarding her birth year, Pierce is accurate in his assertion that she filed her deceased husband's estate inventory on 22 Mar 1667 listed as "age 71" so if she told the truth then a birth year of 1595/96 is correct.[1] Thomas Pierce's will and inventory is listed as as Probate packet 17583 Vol. 3 p. 81, 83 dated 22 Mar 1677.[2] The probate itself confirms this data, she was indeed listed as age 71 on that date.[3]
However, if her son Thomas was born in 1608 as estimated, assuming she was 20 at marriage (WikiTree standard guesstimate) and leaving a year for pregnancy that places her birth at 1587 or earlier. Thomas "Jr" birthdate is also not known with certainy and could have been later. With all this uncertainty, it is hard to pick a birth date but either she lied about her age in 1667 or Thomas Pierce Jr. was probably born 1616 or later.
Her FindAGrave memorial has some interesting text which bears further investigation, but has no sources and lists her as Carew: ...Some genealogies online indicate she was Elizabeth (Carew) Pierce, daughter of Richard Carew and Bridget (Chudleigh) Carew, and this appears to concur with a marriage in International Marriage Index in 1608. Other internet pages call her mother Juliana Arundel and place her birth as Apr 4,1592 at Shilligford St George, Co.Devon...
Note that the "International Marriage Index" on ancestry.com is an auto-aggregated database of a variety of "sources" including unsourced user tree and worksheet submissions and should never be relied upon by itself. A marriage proven to be for Thomas Pierce has not yet been found in a reputable source.
A few unsourced or ridiculously sourced Ancestry trees list her as Elizabeth Brown b. 1601 in Benhall, Suffolk, England married 9 Apr 1622 in Norwick, Norfolk, England
Elizabeth's final fate is not yet known but her death was clearly after 22 Mar 1667 as described above.[3] A death location of Woburn was previously asserted without source on this profile, perhaps conflating her husband with the Thomas Pierce of Woburn. This family was of Charlestown as stated in Thomas' will and there is no particular reason to think she moved elsewhere unless and until other sources come to light.
Not the mother of Daniel Pierce: She is not shown as the mother of PGM Daniel Pierce Sr. (1611-1677).
See also:
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[Do you know Elizabeth's family name?] | P > Pierce > Elizabeth (Unknown) Pierce
Categories: Frederick Clifton Pierce Fraud | Puritan Great Migration
I see now that I put this same comment on his profile about 3 months ago but had not followed up on it and nobody else appears to have either. I'm going to change his estimated birth year since we at least have Elizabeth's own testimony as to "her" age.
I have been trying figure out the ages of Thomas Sr's children. Looking at Sgt. Thomas's birth date of 1608, it seemed to be a little early, based on possible dates for the birth of other children, although I don't really have good dates for possible siblings, only my estimates. You stated that Elizabeth gave her age as 71 in 1667. The copies of the inventory I have looked at are very poor copies, so I have been unable to find where she signed. Could you point me to the place on the inventory where she gave her age? Thank you very much, Michael D Pierce [email address removed]
In his profiling of Daniel in 2007, Robert Charles Anderson did not identify an origin or birth location for Daniel Pierce. No parent or sibling associations were commented upon.
(2) I did not readily identify an entry in New England Marriages to 1700 in the array of returns at AmericanAncestors (by subscription, search results might appear here.) Has anyone else identified the entry?
Confirmed online that this person existed but could not confirm either birth date. There are now duplicate husbands that seems to be under consideration of a merge.