Martha Spencer

notes

John Austin's The Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island has Robert married first Theodosia Whaley July 15, 1697, second Susanna Reynolds widow of Joseph Nov. 7, 1723, third Martha Hopkins widow of Joseph. Theodosia is mother of all children.

She wed her sister's widowed husband after her death.

, also (according to "Are You Your Own Cousin?"), " for the parents of Martha Whaley, I have Theophilas Whaley and Elizabeth Mills. It says that after Joseph died, Martha married Robert Spencer, her sister's widower. I don't know if there is a connection to Joseph's first wife, Phoebe Spencer. It's too confusing for me."

Joseph Hopkins died 15 May 1735 according to the inventory of his estate; his widow Martha married secondly Robert Spencer(1674-1748), the widower of her sister Theodosia Whaley. Found among the papers of Mrs. Dayton Royse (Elymra McGuire): E. Amanda Spencer, a local genealogist of East Greenwich, RI, who died in 1916 (and who was considered "amazingly accurate") stated that although James Austin in his "Rhode Island Genealogical Dictionary" said that Joseph Hopkins, Sr. was the son of Thomas and Sarah Hopkins, she had another opinion, "The wife of Pardon Hopkins, (a lineal descendant of Joseph) told me that Joseph was the son of William and Hannah (Andrews) Hopkins."

Links

• http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=9%2D12%2D...