Person:Content Howes (1)

Peter Branch's wife is said to be born 31 Mar 1700 by Find A Grave. It does not list her parents, but they could not be Thomas and Content as this date precedes their recorded marriage. Such a birth record is not found, however.

Rochester VRs, p. 1: 186, list the birth of Contentt Howes as 31 Oct 1700. Again, no parents are listed. Which is strange. Typically this occurs because they are recording the birth of a married woman but no births are recorded to a mother named Content Howes nor is there a pertinent marriage or death record. So the context of this is unknown. However, again, this date precedes the marriage date of Thomas and Content - as well as being in the wrong county.

No birth record for Thomas Howes' children have been found. Source:Smith, William Christopher. History of Chatham, Massachusetts, p. 227 lists the children of Thomas Howes and Content Smith based on his will and there is no daughter Content mentioned. We know the wife of Peter Branch lived until 1781 because her death is recorded in Preston records. So she should have been named if she was his daughter.

Thomas died in Chatham so apparently lived his whole life in Barnstable County, Massachusetts. The oldest any daughter of his could be in 1719 when Peter Branch married was 18 or less. How such a daughter would marry in Preston, distant from any location she lived in, makes this not very likely in any event.