Mary Hubbard - Mary Hubbard was not Mary Bishop

Since this has been coming up in private discussion threads, I wanted to make a public thread about the origins and parentage of Mary, the wife of George Hubbard, of Wethersfield.

There was an idea popular in the 1800s that Mary was a daughter of John Bishop, of Guilford and Mary or Anne Bishop. (Her name varies by the source.) That idea was printed in many genealogies and has therefore spread into many on-line trees.

However, that idea was authoritatively debunked by Donald L. Jacobus in 1933, in his American Genealogist article "George Hubbard's Wife." Basically, the times don't line up, and there are no records in either Connecticut or England tying them together, which would be highly unusual. In 1960, genealogist Nathan Grier Parke II confirmed Jacobus' findings. The entire theory seems to have come about because Anne's will mentioned her having a granddaughter named Elizabeth Hubbard, and someone in the 1800s just assumed -- with no evidence -- that that had to mean there was a connection to George Hubbard.

So, that is why we don't show parents for Mary, the wife of George Hubbard. No one has ever been able to find documentation of her birth place, birth date, or parents, therefore those details are unknown.

If anyone finds new scholarship confirming any of that info, please share it! But things like vanity genealogies, on-line trees, and FindAGrave listings aren't acceptable sources for this.