I know we've got some real historical linguists on this list. In Massachusetts, Joseph Rice married Mercy King in Sudbury in 1658. He and his wife Martha then had four children between 1660 and 1668, when his wife Martha died. There are holes in the bmd records in that time and set of places. It is not unlikely that Mercy died and Joseph married Martha and there is no existing record. As nearly as we can tell from the records, Mercy's name was really Mercy and was not a reporting mistake. The name Martha appears in the records on five separate occasions. I'd have said, as the older of the Edmund Rice genealogies states, that Mercy died soon after her marriage and the children are Martha's. But Torrey's New England marriages and the Edmund Rice Assn insist that Martha and Mercy were the same woman. Edmund Rice Assn is given to bizarre fits of brain fog. How likely is it that one woman went by the names Mercy and Martha? Yours, Dora Smith Austin, TX [email protected]

Maybe her name was Martha Mercy or Mercy Martha, and they weren't consistent with which name they used on documents? I know many people even today who have that problem....they go by their middle name, but for official things people insist on using only their proper first name. I also have confusion when it comes to my 'Rice' line. It is very vague and inconsisitent. I do know that John Rice (1624-1689) and Ann Hackley (1628-1683) had a daughter Rachel Rice (1664-1743) who is my (x8) grandmother. I'm unsure who John Rice's parents were, or how he fits into the Edmund Rice Assn trees. [John and Ann were both born in England, married and died in Dedham; Rachel was born in Dedham, MA]. -Aimee Matlack Heinly ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dora Smith" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, June 05, 2009 10:20 AM Subject: [PaOldC] Did the names Mercy and Martha belong to the same woman? >I know we've got some real historical linguists on this list. > > In Massachusetts, Joseph Rice married Mercy King in Sudbury in 1658. He > and his wife Martha then had four children between 1660 and 1668, when his > wife Martha died. > > There are holes in the bmd records in that time and set of places. It is > not unlikely that Mercy died and Joseph married Martha and there is no > existing record. > > As nearly as we can tell from the records, Mercy's name was really Mercy > and was not a reporting mistake. The name Martha appears in the records > on five separate occasions. > > I'd have said, as the older of the Edmund Rice genealogies states, that > Mercy died soon after her marriage and the children are Martha's. But > Torrey's New England marriages and the Edmund Rice Assn insist that Martha > and Mercy were the same woman. Edmund Rice Assn is given to bizarre fits > of brain fog. > > How likely is it that one woman went by the names Mercy and Martha? > > Yours, > Dora Smith > Austin, TX > [email protected] > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without > the quotes in the subject and the body of the message