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Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2007-04 > 1177545765


From: "Dora Smith" <>
Subject: Re: [DNA] Non-paternity events----how often do they happen?
Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2007 19:03:06 -0500
References: <042520072222.6053.462FD49F00084D7F000017A522068246939B0708990C0A0B0B@comcast.net>


That was often the norm in medieval England - but it was expected that teh
girl married the same boy who had gotten her with child.

I was shocked to discover that in Shaftesbury, England, around 1600, it was
common for a woman to have several children and never marry at all. I was
trying to use the church records to get more information on William Tyce's
oblique reference in his will to Anne Tyce and her posterity. But that
isn't inconsistent. The peasantry may conceivably have regarded marriage
as a Norman or Christian idea and never fully warmed to the notion.

The behavior of the Tice and King clans in Shaftesbury, Dorset, England, is
more puzzling. Usually wealthy mercers were morally observant and
conservative in lifestyle. Not helping is that there were not necessarily
just one King family in Shaftesbury. But there was just one Tice family.
Thomas King of Sudsbury, Massachusetts, was specifically referenced in the
will of his brother, Peter King of Shaftesbury, who was an exceedingly
prosperous mercer, mayor of the town, etc., etc. Shaftesbury was a small
medieval market town, founded by or before the Saxons, located in Dorset,
England. William Tyce was a prosperous mercer as well. He belonged to a
fairly spread out prosperous family. Mary Tyce, on the other hand, had
two children out of wedlock, and then half the town died in some plague,
Mary and her children among them. Thomas King showed up in Sudsbury
married to Anne, who soon died. It is not proven he or is brother were
originally from Shaftesbury, since Peter's son Peter married a girl from a
wealthy family of mercers 30 miles away, in another town where the family
did business. The fathers' business documents referred to the arrangement
they had made for the marriage. A Thomas King had children in Shaftesbury
with the right ages and names to be some of the children of Thomas of
Sudbury, but not clear it was the same Thomas, and the records begin a
couple of years too late to tell us who Thomas of Shaftesbury married.
Now, the atleast two King families of very different socioeconomic strata
were both LARGE families. William Tyce's will refers to the posterity of
Anne Tyce, and in the next sentence refers to the children of Thomas King in
New England. People infer that Anne Tyce was the wife of Thomas King, but
it never says that. So if Mary Tice casually had repeated children out of
wedlock, did Anne Tyce, even though it was a respectable family? The
family was a bit strange in other ways; not only was it apparently spread
out across three counties, but William Tyce's will makes reference to
relatives in India. A century later the English did trade I think an
English imitation of Indian cotton cloth to Africa for slaves. Few people
at that time whose origins can be traced had travelled more than 15 miles
from where they were born before going to New England.

In Sudbury there is no evidence that Peter King was especially devout, but
he did live in a Puritan community and belong to its church, and he did have
the respect of his community.

Yours,
Dora Smith
Austin, TX


----- Original Message -----
From: <>
To: <>
Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2007 5:22 PM
Subject: Re: [DNA] Non-paternity events----how often do they happen?


>I remember reading that it was pretty common for German peasants to wait to
>marry until the woman conceived. It was important to have help around the
>farm. It is a practice that may have continued with Pa Dutch and the like.
>There may have been some criticism from ministers, however. A typical
>comment in the church register went '"the bride had 4 eyes". I can't
>remember which book I read that in. But the phrase stuck. Dolores
>
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