Family:James Pierce and Elizabeth Parker (1)

Source:Genealogical and Personal Memoirs Relating to the Families of Boston and Eastern Massachusetts, p. 1478, includes in this family a daughter Mary who married "Lea F. Kendall". Other sources do too, but I suspect they all just copy each other in doing this, as I have little or no evidence to confirm this. Mary's birth is not recorded in Source:United States, Massachusetts, Middlesex, Woburn. Records of Births, Deaths, and Marriages, 1640-1900 and I have found no information about Lea F. Kendall. This is a little early for middle names to start appearing (they became popular around the Revolutionary War), which makes it a little suspicious. Then, too, many people have mis-identified the wife of James Pierce as Elizabeth Kendall, and Elizabeth Kendall's father Francis named a granddaughter Mary Pierce in his will, which would cause those people to include Mary in this family. If this is the reason for including Mary, then given the correct wife for James Pierce, Mary would actually belong to Family:Joseph Pierce and Elizabeth Kendall (1).

Whether this is the right or wrong family for Mary, what could justify Cutter in making this statement, that she married Lea F. Kendall? There are no dates at all, so there is the possibility that Mary and Lea actually belongs to a different generation and got misplaced here because no other place could be found. I think the Pierces lived in Woburn all their lives, so I suspect the birth, if it happened, was simply not recorded. The asserted fact does list a husband but no marriage date. So this potential daughter is not being identified by a marriage record. The most likely basis for Cutter's statement, if it is valid, is probably a probate document, or a deed, that identifies Mary, wife of Lea F. Kendall, as the daughter of James Pierce (or Elizabeth Pierce).

It is also curious not to find any information on a name like "Lea F. Kendall" (not that I have access to all sources or might not have missed something). Considering my comment above about middle names, combined with the unusual name "Lea" for a man, I wonder if this is a poor transcription of some other name. In particular, I can envision something that said "Dea. [F/T/S] Kendall" getting so transcribed, a colonial F, T, and S all looking similar. This particular line of reasoning has not yielded any results yet. Deacon Thomas Kendall of Reading was survived by his first wife and so is ineligible for consideration. Deacon Obadiah Kendall was born in 1730 and so makes an unlikely mate for a woman born in the 1690's. Are there any others? I am hoping someone else can shed some light on this. --Jrich 16:06, 22 November 2008 (EST)