| Notes |
- Called Joan Willis in many online sources, with no evidence that we have seen.
She is said, on page 4 of The Clapp Memorial: Record of the Clapp Family in America by Ebenezer Clapp (Boston: David Clapp & Son, 1876), to have been previously married to John Clapp, who emigrated in or soon after 1637 and died in Dorchester on 24 Jul 1655: "The Christian name of his wife was Joan, who, after his death, m. John Ellis, of Medfield." A footnote on the same page quotes "Medfield Records" as saying "John Elice to Joan Clap by Major Atherton, 26 : 4 : 56" and, also, "Joan, the wife of John Ellis, formerly the wife of John Clapp, dismissed to the Church in Medfield."
The problem is that the printed vital records of Medfield (citation details below) record the marriage of "John Elice and Joan Clapp" as taking place on June 16 (not 26), 1655 (not 1656), so either this date, or the Clapp Memorial's date for the death of John Clapp, is wrong. Or possibly all of this confusion is the result of a greater misunderstanding. However, the note about Joan's dismissal to the church at Medfield lends credibility to the proposition that, whatever the specific dates involved, she was the widow of John Clapp when she married John Ellis.
A side issue is the actual location of Joan's marriage to John Ellis. As Benjamin P. Holbrook (citation details below) points out, the marriage is recorded in the Medfield vital records, but it would seem more likely that it actually took place at Dorchester, given that (1) the record notes that it was officiated by Humphrey Atherton, whose entire New England career as a magistrate was at Dorchester, and (2) Joan's dismissal to the church in Medfield took place after her marriage to John Ellis.
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Nielsen Hayden genealogy
- 1704
[1, 2]