Family:William Fellows and Mary Ayers (1)

"(William Fellows married) by about 1637 Mary _____. … "In a petition dated 29 March 1659, and in another one dated in November 1661, John Ayres and William Fellows expressed concern that the children of 'our brother William Lampson late of Ipswich' might not receive their inheritance from their late father's estate because their mother, 'our sister Sarah Lampson,' had remarried to Thomas Hartshorne of Reading. Prior to the remarriage, Hartshorne had promised to give written notice that he would agree to let Sarah dispose of one-half of the estate of her first husband to the children, but now he refused to do so. Moreover, the real estate had been under-valued at the time the inventory was taken, and that error should be corrected, too. Originally the court accepted as security a house and land in Ipswich for the payment of the several portions when the children came of age, but this was then changed to Hartshorne's dwelling house and 15 acres of land in Reading [EPR 1:282-84; EQC 2:334]. This document has resulted in many secondary sources claiming that the wife of this immigrant was Mary Ayres, sister of John Ayres. This is certainly possible, but also not the only solution, and further research is needed on this question."

"The name of William's wife has been determined to be Mary Ayres. This is based on deductive reasoning and a process of elimination, without direct or documentary evidence. Her ancestry is unknown, but she was a sister of John Ayres of Ipswich and Brookfield (W. H. Whitmore, "The Ayres and Ayer Families," Register 17 [1863]: 307-310; W. H. Whitmore, A Record of the Descendants of Captain John Ayres of Brookfield, Mass. [Boston. 1870]). It is not known whether William and Mary were married in England or America, although the former has often been stated."

"The ground for the conjecture [that the wife of William Fellows was Mary, sister of Captain John Ayers of Ipswich] is this. William Lamson died at Ipswich in 1659, leaving eight children. His widow Sarah wished to marry one Thomas Hartshorn, but was opposed by her brothers William Fellows and John Ayres. Now as Ayres married a Symonds, and there is no record of any sisters of his wife who married Lamson and Fellows, it is fair to conclude that their wives were own sisters of John Ayres."