Person:Rachel Roper (1)

Uncertainties

Dedham vital records have Rachel, daughter of John and Alice Roper, born 1639. They also have a Rachel Roper, parentage or spouse not stated, dying in 1641. One Rachel Roper married Archelaus Courser in 1661 (Roper genealogy and Lancaster vital records). The Rachel who died in 1641 could have been the daughter of John and Alice born in 1639. She could have been an undocumented daughter of the first John, and sister of John(2) and Walter(2). She could have been an undocumented daughter of Walter(2). It's unlikely that John and Alice could have had an undocumented Rachel between the 1641 death and the 1642 birth of Hannah, so for sake of keeping it relatively simple, we assume that the Rachel who died was daughter of John(1), daughter of Walter(2) or some random Rachel Roper, keeping Rachel, daughter of John and Alice as wife of Archelaus Courser.

[See the NEHGR recording of Rachel's birth and death in Boston. Appearances suggest the town clerk recorded them together as belonging to the same individual.]

It should be noted that mother Alice's will mentions "my dafter coursers children". (Essex Probate 348, will here)

1. ↑ John Roper, in Roper, Ella E. The Ropers of Sterling and Rutland. (East Orange, New Jersey: Fred.H. Colvin (under the auspices of the Roper Association), 1904)
   84.

   Rachel(3) (Roper), b. Dedham, Mar. 18, 1639, m. Archelaus Courser.

2. ↑ Dedham (Massachusetts). Town Clerk; Julius Herbert Tuttle; Benjamin Fisher; and Don Gleason Hill. The early records of the town of Dedham, Massachusetts. (Dedham, Massachusetts: Dedham Transcript Press, 1886-1936)
   Vol. 1, p. 1, 127.

   Rachell, the Daughter of John & Alice Roper , was borne the 18th of the 1 mo. (1639). Dedham 1. 18 Mar 1639/40. [p. 1]
   Rachell Roper, deceased the 16 of ye 5 mo. (1641). Dedham 127. 16 Jul 1641. [p. 127]

3.   "Early Records of Boston", in The New England Historical and Genealogical Register. (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society)
   Vol. 4, p. 360.

   [From p. 3:126:These records contain the marriages, births, and deaths of several towns, as they were returned to the recorder in Boston, and are copied in the order in which they were entered."]
   Dedham
   Rachell the daught'r of John Roper & Allice his wife was borne 16<si[>o</sup>. (1^o.) 1639, & dyed 16^o. (5^o) 1641.