Person:Unknown Unknown (4971)

The Wife of Thomas Sayre probably not Margaret Aldred/Aldrich

The entry in Torrey reads as follows:

Thomas1 (1597, 1590, 1594?-1670) & Margaret ALDRED (23 Aug 1634); ca 1620/30 in Eng; Lynn/Southampton, LI {Johnson (,7) 12 Chart; NYGBR 12:132; Southampton 374; Sayre 16; Maltby Anc. 108+; Beecher-Bullard 89; Ludington-Saltus 199; Coe-Ward 87; Cory (1914) 79; Williams (,16) 271; Clark (1942)}

Clark (1942) apparently refers to Elmer Sayre Clark's typescript which provides the following items regarding Thomas Sayre and Margaret Aldred:

p. 7 SAYRE/SAYER: Thomas (1597-1670), of Wrentham, Suff. M 1634 Margaret Aldred of Henstead; removed 1638 to Lynn, Mass., 1640 to Southampton, NY.

p. 141 SAYRE MARRIAGES IN COUNTY SUFFOLK, ENGLAND: Aug. 23, 1634, Thomas Saier of Wrentham and Margaret Aldred of South Cove, late of Henstead, both single, at South Cove. P. 95.

p. 142 SAYER OF PULHAM ST. MARY, COUNTY NORFOLK: THOMAS SAYRE (d 1670) (John1, Richard2, John3, of Pulham, Norf.), married Aug. 23, 1634, Margaret Aldred at South Cove, Co. Suff. He removed from Wrentham, Co. Suff. To Lynn, Mss., thence to Southampton, Island, where he was a Founder and where he resided until his death, 1670.

However, Banta, in the Sayre genealogy (13-25) effectively makes the case that the Sayres were a Bedfordshire family (note that the distance from Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, to Wrentham, Suffolk, is more than 130 miles and represents an unlikely migration path, especially for a widower with as many as six dhildren). In addition, one of Thomas's daughters, Damaris, who married David Atwater of New Haven, bore her (apparently) eldest child on 29 February 1647/8; it is highly unlikely that Damaris was the child of a marriage which took place in the second half of 1634.

It would appear from the above that Elmer Sayre Clark was not aware of Banta's Sayre genealogy, or chose to ignore it, and that the husband of Margaret Aldred was an entirely different Thomas Sayre/Saier.

1. ↑ ^1.0 1.1 Banta, Theodore Melvin. Sayre Family : Lineage of Thomas Sayre, a Founder of Southampton. (New York: The De Vinne Press, 1901)
   16.
2. ↑ ^2.0 2.1 Clark, Elmer Sayre. Clark of Elizabeth Town in New Jersey. (Pontiac, Ill.: unknown, 1942)
   7, 141-142.