Surname Saturday: Aldis

Today for Surname Saturday, we'll look at another line that connects through Massachusetts Colony.  We alternate back to my wife's side of the family and start from her eighth great grandmother, Hannah Aldis.  As with many of the families from this era, I don't have a whole lot of information on this line yet, but I do know about three generations.

Our connection to this line is through Hannah Aldis, who was born on 4 July 1666 in Dedham, Massachusetts Colony.  She married John Farnsworth, a Massachusetts-born Englishman, on 8 December 1686 in Groton, Massachusetts.  They had nine children together, including five sons and four daughters, all born in Groton.  I don't know Hannah's death details yet.  I'll save the details on her children for the Farnsworth post in a few weeks.

Hannah was the youngest of six children born to John Aldis and Sarah Eliot.  Like the Beach family mentioned last week and the Aggar family before that, John and Sarah both emigrated to the Colony from England soon after it was established.  I don't know John's birth date yet, but Sarah was born sometime before 25 January 1629.  They married in Dedham, Massachusetts on 27 September 1650, and had all six children there.  The children were: Sarah Eliot Aldis (F; b. 9 June 1652; m. 26 April 1675 Gershom Hubbard; d. 14 April 1712), John Aldis (M; b. 12 Feb 1655; m. 23 May 1682 Mary "Widow Winchester"; d. 18 March 1736), Mary Aldis (F; b. 29 Nov 1657; m. 21 Feb 1679 Nathaniel Richards; d. after 1727), Daniel Aldis (M; b. 3 Aug 1661; m. 23 Nov 1685 Sarah Paine; d. 21 Jan 1717/18), Nathaniel Aldis (M; b. 6 March 1664; d. 5 Aug 1683) and Hannah Aldis (above).  The elder John Aldis died on 21 December 1700 in Dedham; conflicting records for his wife, Sarah Eliot, list her death as 17 April in either 1686 or 1711, which would have likely put her in either her 50s or 80s at death.  Since Colonial lifespans were much shorter than contemporary American lifespans, I'm leaning more toward 1686, but I need to find more reliable sources to verify this.

The next generation back is where the line currently ends and where things get a little confusing.  Family research has John's parents as Nathan Aldis and Mary __.  Nathan was born circa 1596 in England and died 15 March 1675/6 in Dedham, Massachusetts.  Mary's birth details aren't known yet, but she died on 1 January 1676/7, also in Dedham.  The confusing part of this family is Nathan and Mary's marriage.  Right now, I have their marriage listed as circa 1624 in Dedham, Massachusetts, but both children that I know of for this marriage (John [listed above] and Mary Aldis [F; m. 15 March 1643 Joshua Fisher; d. 3 Sep 1653]) are listed as born in England at an unknown date.  Looking at the history of Massachusetts, it seems unlikely that Nathan and Mary were married in Massachusetts, especially if the marriage occurred in 1624.  We've seen already that Massachusetts Colony was established in 1628, so based on that and the knowledge that their children John and Mary were born in England, it seems more likely that Nathan and Mary were married in England as well and the whole family moved to Massachusetts sometime between 1630 and the late 1640s.

So, now that I've shown details on four families that I'm researching and three of them connect near the establishment Massachusetts Colony, it is clear to me that I need to further research the Colony itself.

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