Dorcas Andrews

From http://www.americanancestors.org/discussions.aspx?g=posts&t=28354

In similar fashion, there is uncertainty as to whether or not Elizabeth (Cleeve) (Mitton) Harvey was the mother of Dorcas (Mitton) Andrews. Per Robert J. Dunkle (“The Andrews-Cogswell-Page Bible,” The Genealogist, 3: 45-95), Dorcas (Mitton) Andrews, wife of James Andrews, was buried in the Old Granary Burial Ground, Boston, in 1695, aged 69; if so, she was born about 1626.  Michael Mitton was reportedly married to Elizabeth Cleeves after his arrival in Maine about 1637; if so, Elizabeth could not have been Dorcas’s mother.  However, Dorcas’s maternity is ambiguous, given the ambiguity associated with the age etched on Dorcas’ grave marker. According to Ogden Codman (Gravestone Inscriptions And Records of Tomb Burials In the Granary Burying Ground, Boston, Mass. Salem, Mass.: The Essex institute, 1918.), the age stated on her grave marker is 60, rather than 69; if so, she was born about 1635.  Given the general lack of precision in tracking one’s own age in that era, if Dorcas (Mitton) Andrews was actually born after Michael Mitton immigrated, it remains possible that Elizabeth (Cleeve) (Mitton) Harvey was her mother.

From Perry Streeter's Post'Em 2013

Dorcas, wife of James-2 ANDREWS (Samuel-1), is frequently but incorrectly identified as a daughter of Michael-1 & Elizabeth (CLEEVE) MITTON, thanks in part to the following source:

Robert J. Dunkle, “The Andrews–Cogswell–Page Bible,” Genealogist 3 (1982): 45-95

John Brooks Threlfall, Twenty-six great migration colonists to New England & their origins (Madison, Wisconsin: John Brooks Threlfall, 1993) has been digitized and is accessible via FamilySearch.org. The specific URL for the PDF is...

https://dcms.lds.org/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE197629

Critical corrections to Dunkle from Threlfall include the following:

• It was James-3 ANDREWS (James-2, Samuel-1) who married Sarah-2 MITTON (Michael-1).
• Sarah-2 (MITTON) ANDREWS died without issue so the identity of the second wife of James-3 ANDREWS (and the mother of his daughter, Jemima) is unknown.
• Michael-1 & Elizabeth (CLEEVE) MITTON had no daughter named Dorcas.
• The origins of Dorcas, wife of James-2 ANDREWS (Samuel-1), are unknown.

For other corrections to Dunkle, see also:

• David L. Greene, FASG, “Correspondence,” Genealogist 3 (1982): 263-4
• Nathaniel Lane Taylor, FASG, “the bearth of all my Children was... (Andrews–Mackworth),” (15 December 2008), an entry in his blog, A Genealogist’s Sketchbook (http://nltaylor.net/sketchbook/archives/210)

Unfortunately, Robert Charles Anderson, George F. Sanborn Jr., and Melinde Lutz Sanborn, The Great Migration: Immigrants to New England, 1634–1635, 7 vols. (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1999–2011), 1:56-8 did not include any of Greene’s corrections or Threlfall’s corrections to Dunkle (which were available) nor any of Taylor’s corrections to Dunkle (which were not yet available).

I am sharing these corrections with you and many others in hopes that awareness of the same will ultimately lead to identifying the true origins of Dorcas (-) ANDREWS.

References

• New England, The Great Migration and The Great Migration Begins, 1620-1635. “Samuel Andrews.” Page 56 - 59. AncestryImage