Jane Mapp (Matthews) - Evidence from the Miles Files

Started by Private User on Sunday, April 9, 2017
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Apparently there were two women named Jane, one of whom married Harman Johnson (and nobody else), and the other married Robert Nottingham and then Thomas Ward.

John Mapp (son of John the immigrant) "married Esther Matthews, daughter of Walter Matthews and Sarah Custis (Custis?), circa 1695. According to Spencer Wise, one of their descendants, they lived in Wilsonia Neck, N'hamp Co, VA."

"On 28 Feb 1704/5 Elizabeth and Margaret Johnson came to court and presented a discharge, acquitting their uncle John Mapp of all and every part of their estates left by their deceased father, Harman Johnson. Also recorded on 28 Feb 1704/5 Jane Johnson, widow of Harman Johnson dec'd, assigned a lease to John Mapp, but it had an assignment date of 28 Jan 1692/3. (NOTE: It is not clear if one of John Mapp's sisters or one of his wife's sisters married Harman Johnson. Harman Johnson's estate was administered to his widow Jane Johson on 28 Nov 1692, but evidently Harman had a wife Mary in 1668 when his [daughter Elizabeth's] cattle mark was registered.)"

Let's parse this out. Harman Johnson registered a cattle mark in his own name on March the 6th 1665/6 (http://easternshorestuff.com/misc/northampton_county_cattlemarks.htm). He then registered a slightly differenced cattlemark to "Elizabeth daughter of Harman Johnson and Mary" on May 23rd 1668 (ibid.) So as of 1668 he had a wife named Mary (not Jane) and a daughter named Elizabeth.

Some time later, possibly after producing daughter Margaret as well, Mary died, and he remarried. His second wife was named Jane, and she was (presumably) a sister of either John Mapp or Esther Matthews (neither family shows a daughter Jane, but the records are sketchy this far back).

Harman Johnson died sometime shortly before 28 Nov 1692, probably earlier in that year, and there is no record of his widow Jane remarrying. (Nor had Elizabeth or Margaret, his daughters, married as of 28 Feb 1704/5.)

As to the other Jane, she married Robert Nottingham circa 1685, and they had two children: Capt. Robert Nottingham (c. 1690) and Ann Nottingham (c. 1692). Robert died in July 1698 (his will was probated on 28 July 1698), and soon thereafter Jane married Thomas Ward. There were no children of her second marriage. http://espl-genealogy.org/MilesFiles/site/p546.htm#i54532 The Miles Files assigned her the last name "Johnson?") at a time when it was still thought that she could have been the widow of Harman Johnson when she married Robert Nottingham - but the dates show this to be extremely unlikely.

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