Person talk:John Gove (3)

Who did he marry? [15 January 2011]

There has been some speculation about how Mary (_____) (Gove) Mansfield was related to Christopher Gibson, who married Sarah Sale, daughter of Edward and Elizabeth (Gifford) Sale. Gibson mentions "Sister Mansfield" in his will. This led to speculation in a 1911 article in NEHGR (65:66), that John Mansfield's wife, widow of John Gove, may have been Mary Sale, Sarah's sister. However, it appears that since then, a marriage record has been found for John Gove and Mary Shard in 1630/31 (cited in A Genealogical History of the Clark and Worth Familise and other Puritan settlers in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1970, page 165). Torrey also indicates that John Gove married Mary Shard in 1630/31.

While it is not impossible that Mary Shard was Mary Sale (Shard being her first husband), Clark and Worth identifies a Mary Shard baptized in the same parish as the marriage, making this unlikely. Another possibility was that Mary (Shard) Gove died and John Gove later married Mary Sale, but there is no evidence for this, and this is just more speculation with a very weak base (one unclear reference in one will).

It would appear that Mary (_____) (Gove) Mansfield was related to Christopher Gibson in some other way - or not at all, if "Sister" simply meant a member of the same church.--DataAnalyst 18:45, 15 January 2011 (EST)