Nielsen Hayden genealogy
Family: John Folger / Merrable Gibbs (F10708)
m. Bef 25 Jan 1609-
Male
John Folger
Birth Norwich, Norfolk, England 
Death Abt 1660 Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts Burial Marriage Bef 25 Jan 1609 [1] Father Mother
Female
Merrable Gibbs
Birth Death Aft 1663 Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts Burial Father John Gibbs | F10778 Group Sheet Mother Frances Robertson | F10778 Group Sheet
Male
+ Peter Folger
Birth Abt 1617 Norwich, Norfolk, England Death 1690 Nantucket, Massachusetts Burial Founders Burial Ground, Nantucket, Massachusetts Spouse Mary Morrill | F10706 Marriage 1644 Nantucket, Massachusetts
Female
+ Mary Folger
Birth Aft 1617 Death Bef 18 Jul 1685 Burial Spouse Jeremiah Vail | F13635 Marriage 24 May 1660 Southold, Suffolk, Long Island, New York
-
Notes - Some confusion has transpired over whether Merrable Gibbs was the mother of Peter Folger. In his 1862 NEHGR article "The Folger Family," William Coleman Folger wrote "John Folger died about 1660. Meribell Folger his widow was living in 1664. Her surname is supposed to have been Gibbs. According to tradition, John was a widower when he came over [in 1635]; if this be correct, he must have married her after his arrival in America."
But Benjamin Franklin was certainly aware that Merrable Gibbs was the mother of his grandfather Peter Folger. In 1759, M. Foulger of Illington, Norfolk wrote to Franklin that "John Foulger married to Mirriba Gibbs in Old England by hir he had one sone named Peter and one Daughter than married a Pain on Long Island." And in 1932 George Andrews Moriarty discovered and published the will of "John Gibbes of Frendes in the County of Norff[olk] yeoman," dated 25 Jan 1609, which included a bequest to his daughter "Merrable Folser." So the "tradition" that John Folger emigrated as a widower would appear to have been incorrect; he was certainly married to Merrable Gibbs before 25 Jan 1609, and she certainly outlived him by four years and died on Martha's Vineyard in or after 1664.
- Some confusion has transpired over whether Merrable Gibbs was the mother of Peter Folger. In his 1862 NEHGR article "The Folger Family," William Coleman Folger wrote "John Folger died about 1660. Meribell Folger his widow was living in 1664. Her surname is supposed to have been Gibbs. According to tradition, John was a widower when he came over [in 1635]; if this be correct, he must have married her after his arrival in America."
-
Sources - [S2310] Nathan W. Murphy, "Gibbs and Robertson Ancestry of Merrable Gibbs, Wife of John Folger of Martha's Vineyard, and Anne Gibbs, Wife of Rev. John Fiske of Chelmsford, Massachusetts." The American Genealogist 88:286, October 2016.
- [S2310] Nathan W. Murphy, "Gibbs and Robertson Ancestry of Merrable Gibbs, Wife of John Folger of Martha's Vineyard, and Anne Gibbs, Wife of Rev. John Fiske of Chelmsford, Massachusetts." The American Genealogist 88:286, October 2016.