Family:George Partridge and Sarah Tracy (1)

The Children of George and Sarah (Tracy) Partridge

"The evidence for the birth order of the children of George Partridge is limited. Of the ten known children of this immigrant, a birth record survives for only one, and that record is neither complete nor totally reliable. Savage stated that son John Partridge was born on 29 November 1657 [Savage 3:365] and he has been followed by more recent writers. The best published version of the Duxbury vital records, however, gives this date, but with no final digit for the year [MD 9:174]. This birth record is in the middle of a page of records from the late 1670s and early 1680s and preceding the records for the three children of John Mitchell born between 1676 and 1683. The handwriting is extremely crisp and clear on this page, and the absence of the final digit for the year of birth of John Partridge is not the result of wear and tear on the record book; the clerk simply did not complete the record. At the bottom of the page is the entry for the birth of the first child of John Partridge in 1686. The likely explanation is that, when John Partridge arranged to have the birth of his child recorded, he also requested that his own birth be recorded, about thirty years after the fact. For some reason, the full date did not get entered.

From the wills of the parents, we learn that there were eight daughters and two sons, and that John was the elder of the two sons. Normally, in the absence of contemporary birth or baptismal records, we would begin to construct the birth order by estimating the years of birth from the dates of first marriages of the children. However, it would appear that several of the children married long after the normal date of first marriage for that time.

Consequently, the approach taken here is to assume that Sarah (Tracy) Partridge named her daughters in birth order, that the eldest daughter was born one year after the marriage of the parents, and that the rest of the children were born at two year intervals. With those assumptions, the eight daughters would have been born between 1639 and 1653. We would then place son John as the next in birth order, assigning him the birth year of 1655 (which would be consistent with the incomplete birth record). Finally, James would be the youngest of the ten children, estimated as born in 1657.

Other arrangements are certainly possible. In 1657 Sarah (Tracy) Partridge would have been only about thirty-four years old [GMB 3:1833], so there would have been room for a few unrecorded stillbirths or children who died young interpolated in this series. In any case, the arrangement presented here is offerred as a basis for further research."^[4]

The will of Sarah (Tracy) Partridge

"In her will dated 28 November 1702 and proved 6 October 1708, 'Sarah Prartrich [sic] in the town of Duxbury' bequeathed to 'my eight daughters, that is to say, Sarah Allien, Triphosa West, Elizabeth Allien, Ruth Thatcher, Mary Scif, Rebeckah Fisher, Lidia Bruister, Mercy Coburn, all my linen great & small together with all my woollen wearing clothes to be equally divided between them all, three of my daughters before named being deceased my meaning is that their children should have their mothers' part & that equally divided amongst them': 'all my money which I die possessed of or which is owing to me should be equally divided among my ten children, it's still to be understood that the children of those that are deceased should have their mothers' part as before is said'; residue to 'be equally divided amongst my ten children as is before expressed'; 'my son John is to have my great Bible as a gift of his father after my decease'; 'the sheep at the vineyard are my son James Allien's by bargain'; 'my son Jam[e]s Partridge' to be executor; 'my son Bruister & my son John Partridge' to be overseers [PPR 2:131].

The inventory of the estate of 'Sarah Partridg of Duxbury, deceased,' taken 18 October 1708, was untotalled and included no real estate [PPR 2:132]."^[4]

1. ↑ van Antwerp, Lee Douglas, and Ruth Wilder Sherman. Vital Records of Plymouth, Massachusetts to the Year 1850. (Camden, Maine: Picton Press, 1993)
   653.

   GEORG PARTRICH and SARAH TRACY married [blank] Nov. 1638.

2. ↑ Tracy, Sherman Weld. The Tracy Genealogy: Being Some of the Descendants of Stephen Tracy of Plymouth Colony, 1623; also Ancestral Sketches and Chart. (Rutland, Vermont: Tuttle Publishing Company, Inc., 1936)
   24.

   (Sarah Tracy) m. at Plymouth, Massachusetts, 16 November 1638, George Partridge, who is said to have come from Kent, England, on the "James."

3. ↑ Stephen Tracy, in Ferris, Mary Walton. Dawes-Gates Ancestral Lines: A Memorial Volume Containing the American Ancestry of Rufus R. Dawes; and A Memorial Volume Containing the American Ancestry of Mary Beman (Gates) Dawes. (Milwaukee, WI: Cuneo Press, 1931-1943)
   II:801.

   (Sarah Tracy) m. November 28, 1638, George Partridge of Duxbury.

4. ↑ ^4.0 4.1 George Partridge, in Anderson, Robert Charles; George F. Sanborn; and Melinde Lutz Sanborn. The Great Migration: Immigrants to New England, 1634-1635. (Boston, Massachusetts: NEHGS, 1999-2011)
   V:376-377, 380-381.
5. ↑ Mrs. Ferris misquotes the Partridge genealogy which gives month and year of marriage, but not the date.