Dorothy Willard (nee Dunster)

Started by Lisa Armbruster on Tuesday, April 21, 2015
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4/21/2015 at 12:12 PM

Dorothy Willard
I noticed on many family trees and sites, Dorothy Dunster's birth date and birth place, are exactly the same as her husband's, namely December 4 1614 in Horesemunden Kent. Here it is listed as Dec 4, 1614 in Bury, Lancashire, which is the more likely place of her birth, but not her birthdate (unless there was an unusual coincidence). Bury is near Manchester, in the northwest part of England, whereas Kent is in the far southeast, so it is safe to conclude that her husband's info was written as her own. Death dates are hard to mix up, especially if one died in the U.S.

Therefore, I also conclude that Dorothy's actual birthdate was likely later than 1614, because most of the time (including nowadays) the wife was younger than her spouse, and since her possible parents, Isabel Kaye and Henry Dunster, were married in Oct of 1615, i will also conclude that she was born no earlier than July of 1616. Premarital sex did occur, but the Puritans would have taken a hard stance on it.

There was simply a mistake making her husband's vital info her own, which I've seen many other times for other ancestors. Women's birth data were not recorded as completely nor as often as men's, partly because they would take their husband's surname.

I am descended from Dorothy Dunster (sometimes listed as Deborah, which was her daughter's name) and also her half-brother, Henry Dunster, born in 1609. There is an article on him in Wikipedia, since he was the first president of Harvard. Many people are his descendants.

This is just deductive reasoning, since I could not find any firm data.

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