Transcript talk:Savage, James. Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England/v1p249

Defect 1 [1 May 2022]

Anderson in Source:Anderson, Robert Charles. Great Migration: Immigrants to New England, 1634-1635, Vol. 1 (A-B), p. 390, says, "Some secondary sources, including Savage, propose an earlier wife Alice, but no supporting evidence for this has been found, so we assume here two wives only for Edmund Bridges." The only child whose birth is recorded is Mehitable in Rowley in 1641, and that record here appears to clearly name the mother Alice (also transcribed as Alice in both the town copy and the published VRs)! Ironically, Savage only attributes to Alice the first son Edmund and attributes Mehitable to 2nd wife Elizabeth. He also seems to have a flawed birth order for the children. That he goes against what appears to be some of the best evidence for his argument weakens his case, given his occasional use of other people's work.

Given the phonetic spelling of the day, Eliza and Alice are not that far apart, so could be the same person. A resolution will depend on other data. James immigrated in 1635 according to Anderson and the marriage to Elizabeth is "about 1636". So apparently there was no wife at immigration and we have no marriage record naming his wife. Elizabeth died 1664 (i.e., named, in Ipswich VRs 2:496) but Anderson does not mention any other facts that would appear to name the wife either way. More research is needed. --Jrich 15:46, 1 May 2022 (UTC)