I am switching horses. Although there is no proof, after mulling over these three theories and going through it all again, and after much discussion with my smarter cousin, I now believe that the earlier researchers had it right all along -- George married Samuel Maycock's daughter Sarah. The reason I have come round to this way of thinking is that the evidence does seem to show that George Pace patented the Maycock land. It is too much of a coincidence to suppose that he patented the Maycock land AND his widow just happened to marry an otherwise-unidentified Maycock after he died. And in that light, it becomes understandable that Richard would have named his mother by her name before marriage, to register the fact that she (and therefore he) was the Maycock heir and thus had full title to the land. The arguments AGAINST young Sarah being George's wife are as follows: 1. There's no proof that she was Samuel Maycock's daughter. I'm swayed to believe she was, not only because it makes sense for Capt Roger Smith to take in a fellow Council member's orphan daughter, but also because he seems to have been sheltering another little girl whose parents seem to be missing (Elizabeth Salter). That makes it look like Capt Smith and his wife did take in the orphaned girl children. The fact that they already had a 4-year-old daughter, and no boy child, might have been a factor in this. It would make sense, accommodation-wise, for stray children to be divided by sex and billeted where there was already a child or children of the same sex. 2. Objection number two: Sarah Maycock was granted 200 acres for the four servants brought over by Mr or Mrs Samuel Maycock. It has been argued that this Sarah Maycock, the heir of Samuel, must have been a grown woman (i.e. his widow), because a minor child could not come into court alone. I am not knowledgeable enough to judge how strong this argument is. However, it seems to me that it may be significant that little Sarah was the daughter of one Council Member and (apparently) the de facto ward of another. It's impossible to be sure, from the fragment of the record, but mightn't it be a note of an order by Council rather than an order in court? The four servants apparently came in on the Abigail in Dec 1622. Council Member Samuel Maycock, who was entitled to land for bringing them over, was dead. Mightn't his fellow Council Members have just been recording the fact that the land which was due to him would now go to his daughter? At any rate, it seems to me to be putting too much on to the order granting the 200 acres, to conclude on that basis that Samuel's widow, never mentioned elsewhere, (a) was named Sarah, and (b) survived the massacre though not listed on the muster, and (c) married George Pace many years later. Too many conclusions from one uncertain premise, for me. 3. Finally, there is the question of whether or not Sarah Maycock the child would be old enough to be the mother of George Pace's son Richard in 1638. It is argued that she would have been no more than 13 or 14 in 1638. "Two" could mean anything between 24-35 months, and also we don't know how accurate it was. With both her parents dead and the colony under extreme pressure, it's not certain that anyone in the household would be able to say the exact date she was born. At the latest, the way I figure it, she could have been born Dec 1622 (nine months after the massacre). Would that not make her 16, of legal age to be married, in 1638? And most probably she was born before Dec 1622. If I'm miscalculating, could someone please point out my error. As a result of the above reasoning, I am pencilling little Sarah back in as wife to George and mother to Richard. I would be interested to hear any corrections or counter-arguments. Ellen Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com