Family talk:John Foot and Mary Unknown (1)

Need sources - probably wrong wife [16 December 2012]

The source cited on this page [1] does not give sources. It is not clear that Mary Palmer is the correct identification of John Foot(e)'s wife.

Source:Jacobus, Donald Lines. Bulkeley Genealogy, p. 885, gives no information about a marriage for Mary Palmer, though he shows marriages for her siblings, indicating he had no knowledge of her marriage. Then under her brother Micah, he says that Micah m. (2) abt 1714/15 Mary (---) Foote, widow of John Foote (John died 1713 according to the above website and numerous published sources). According to this page, that would imply he married his sister! Unfortunately, Jacobus did not provide any evidence, but if one accepts this based on his reputation, one could speculate that some probate document mentions Mary Palmer as the widow of John Foote and this has been misconstrued by somebody to indicate that John Foote married Mary Palmer?

Source:Cooch, Mary Evarts Webb. Ancestry and Descendants of Nancy Allyn Foote Webb, Rev. Edward Webb, and Joseph Wilkins Cooch, p. 14, identifies John Foote's wife only as "Mary".

Source:Foote, Abram William. Foote Family : Comprising the Genealogy and History of Nathaniel Foote, of Wethersfield, Conn., and His Descendants; Also a, p. 32, gives John Foote's wife as "Mary ----", indicating her maiden name is unknown. --Jrich 16:29, 3 December 2010 (EST)

Additional note: The Foot Family Association of America website, see children of #25 Robert Foote lists John's wife as "Mary ?". The Pane-Joyce website which is usually pretty good and gives sources, does not have a source for the marriage of John Foote and (according to it) "Mary Palmer".The source for their death dates, however, was the 1907 ed. of the Foote Family, cited above, which itself indicated that Mary's maiden name was unknown. So it is still unknown on what basis the wife is identified as Mary Palmer.

Source:Torrey, Clarence Almon. New England Marriages Prior to 1700 gives a marriage of a John Foote to Mary Truesdale in Watertown and another of John Foot to Mary "[?Palmer]". Both appear to be based on recorded births, not on marriage records. This source gives no information about the John Foote who married in Watertown, so it obviously could not determine if they are the same or different John Foot[e], but it suggests the possibility that John married in Watertown, then returned to Branford where his wife was not known, leaving everybody to guess her maiden name? According to the Foote Family work cited above, p. 4: Nathaniel, John Foote's grandfather, settled in Watertown in 1636, and his father Robert settled in Branford, suggesting some connection to Watertown. The fact that John was not from Watertown would explain why most Truesdale sources can't identify him. There is no WeRelate page for Mary Truesdale but her parent's page says that the probate documents for her father names his daughter Mary Foote.

To summarize my quick research into this family, I have found not one piece of actual evidence that John Foote's wife was Mary Palmer, and even ignoring evidence, it is far from unanimously accepted. Further there is an assertion by a respected genealogist that implies it could not be so. There is an alternate candidate with documented proof of having married a John Foote, and though this seems like the only possible John Foote of those listed on the Foote Family website, identifying him as this John Foote is purely speculative at this point. Somebody that an interest in this family will hopefully follow up the various probate documents, Branford records, etc., and document any clues found there. --Jrich 10:12, 4 December 2010 (EST)

Went through all the sources given by Torrey with the following results:

John (1670-1713) & Mary [?PALMER] (1673-); by 1696, 1697; Branford, CT

{New Haven Gen. Mag. 397 [… Mary da. John & Mary Foote],

607 [John (Foote) … m Mary [da. Micah & Elizabeth (Bulkeley) Palmer]],

1113 Mary da. John & Mary Foote, wid. John Chidsey …];

Benton-Bishop 56 [John Foot, b. July 24th, 1670. d. 1713. m. Mary _____];

Noyes-Gilman 301 [John, born in Branford, July 24, 1670; married in 1696, Mary _____ _____; died in Branford in 1713.];

Dawes-Gates 2:342 [… John³, b. July 24, 1670: d. 1713 at Branford; m., 1696, Mary (_____).];

Foote (1907) 32 [18. JOHN FOOTE, (5, 1,) b. July 24, 1670; m. 1696, Mary _____. …];

Webb Anc. 14 [IV. John Foote, b. July 24, 1670; m. 1696 … Mary.];

Reg. 9:272 [John, of B., b. 24 July, 1670, d. 1713; wf. Mary]}.

The only one which mentioned the Palmer surname was the second of three citations by Jacobus in the New Haven Genealogical Magazine (a.k.a. Families of Ancient New Haven} and there it (1) was a maybe and (2) he didn't go there again when he had the opportunity a couple of years later. I'm inclined to make the change now, but am content to let it sit for a while to see if anyone else would care to comment further.--jaques1724 21:39, 8 November 2012 (EST)

I just spent some time digging around for any evidence of it. I could find none, just secondary references to Jacobus's early statement on this family. Certainly none of the various works on the Foote family call her anything other than Mary (---) Foote.--Daniel Maxwell 05:48, 16 December 2012 (EST)