Family:Edmund Perry and Sarah Betts (1)

The name Edmund Perry cannot be found in the records of Sandwich or Plymouth. Although descendants of Edward Perry of Sandwich passed down a tradition that the family came from Devonshire, England, the Perry family has not been found in the Devonshire records. Without documentary evidence to support the name of Edmund for the father of the Perrys in the Plymouth and Massachusetts Colonies, his name must remain unknown.

The identity of Sarah as the mother of the Perrys found in the Massachusetts and Plymouth Colonies, again there is a problem. Her name is mentioned once in the Plymouth Colony Court Records. "Ezra Perry is allowed by the Court to be Executor of the Estate of Sarah Perry, there being noe other (although she hath many friends in the County) that claimeth interest to the Estate ..." Based on this record, B. (Phinney) Brownson and Maclean W. McLean in the Ezra Perry genealogy published in the New England Historical Genealogical Register, 115:86ff, concluded, "neither Ezra nor any of the other Perrys in Sandwich were closely related by blood to the deceased widow Sarah Perry." They suggested that Sarah Perry may have been Ezra's step-mother.

Recent DNA studies of descendants of Edward Perry and Ezra Perry show that these two men do share a recent common ancestor. But if Ezra was the only person who had an interest in the estate of Sarah Perry and by implication, Edward Perry did not have an interest, then there is doubt that Ezra Perry and Edward Perry were brothers. Perhaps they were cousins.

A long list of children for this hypothetical family of Edmund Perry and Sarah Unknown has been compiled from the several Perrys living in the Massachusetts and Plymouth Colonies including: Arthur, Anthony, John, William, Elizabeth, Margaret, Ezra, Edmund, Edward, Hannah, and Deborah. The only apparent basis for including these Perrys in the family group is that they lived in these two colonies at this time. Edmund is probably a corrupted spelling for Edward and may be the origin of the name for Edmund Perry, the hypothetical father of this family.

Without early records showing how these early Perrys were related, it is not possible to determine who was related to whom. But Edward Perry, Hannah (Perry) Dillingham and Deborah (Perry) Harper were members of the Sandwich Society of Friends. Possibly these three were siblings. Ezra Perry and Margaret (Perry) Freeman also lived in Sandwich, but there is no evidence that they were members of the Society of Friends. Edward Perry married Mary Freeman, possibly a cousin of Edmond Freeman, Margaret Perry's husband.

In the future, additional DNA studies may show that all of the Perry men listed share a recent common ancestor, or the tests may show that some of these men are not related.