perhaps Sarah Reynolds

Not a known child of James Chesterfield Church & Alyce Church

Family

John Reynolds was born abt. 1612 in Boxford, Suffolk, England, and died aft. 1651 in Stamford, Connecticut. [1]

parents: Unknown. As of March 2019, Y DNA testing shows that John Reynolds of Watertown was not the brother of Robert Reynolds, of Boston and they do not share a common ancestor. Disconnected as son of George Reynolds & Thomasyn (Church) Reynolds

He married about 1630 in Boxford, Suffolk, England to Sarah [Cheserton or Chesterfield].

Her maiden name is a claim made by McCracken in 1953 and is dusputed by Anderson in the Great Migration Begins.

children of John Reynolds and Sarah born at Watertown:

1. Elizabeth (1634-1702) m. Peter Ferris
2. Jonathan (1636-1673) m. Rebecca Heusted
3. John (1638-1702) m. Juda Palmer

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Biography

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/159228727/sarah-reynolds

John Reynolds married by about 1631 _____ _____ (perhaps Sarah _____ .

They had 3 children: Jonathan, Elizabeth Ferris, & John.

Some sources suggest or claim that the wife of John Reynolds was named Sarah. This claim is based on only two records. First, on 30 April 1634, "Sarah Reynolds," aged 20, took the oath of allegiance at Ipswich for passage to New England on the Elizabeth. Many of the passengers on this vessel settled at Watertown, so the association with the subject of the present sketch is understandable. However, given the ages we have estimated for the children of John Reynolds (making them a few years older than argued by Marion H. Reynolds), he would have been married by about 1631, when the passenger Sarah Reynolds would have been just seventeen. Such an age at first marriage is not, of course, impossible, but sufficiently unlikely to prevent the identification of this passenger with the wife of John Reynolds.

Second, two versions of a death record for a Sarah Reynolds were entered into Stamford town records. The first reads "Sarrah Reanolds died 31:6:1657 [31 August 1657]" and the second reads "Sarra Reanols died the 31 August 1657." Marion H. Reynolds made the curious claim that the first of these reads "Sarrah Reanolds (wife of John) died 31-16-1657." Even more curiously, she claims in a footnote on the same page that the death record does not distinguish her as wife or widow. We shall argue below that John Reynolds died many years before 1657.

In sum, neither of these records can be definitely identified as pertaining to the wife of John Reynolds, whoever she may have been, and so we are left with no record that states the given name of that wife. The 1657 death record could be for the widow of John, but we simply do not know. Since there was no other Reynolds family in early Stamford, this Sarah dying in 1657 may well have been a member of the family in some way.

Links

• http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~legends/reynolds.html