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Spencer P. Mead [the auther of The History and Genealogy of the Mead Family] does not give much detail on the life of William Mead. After stating that William Mead received a houselot in Stamford on 7 December 1641, he starts the historical account of the family with:
Of William, the ancestor of all the Fairfield County Meads, very little concerning him, except already mentioned, has been found. His wife died in Stamford, September 16, 1657. No record of his death has as yet been found.
Later, Mead corrects himself on the date of William Mead's wife's death, stating that "the author has been unable to ascertain who he married, but from the Stamford Town Records, it appears that his wife died September 19, 1657."
Mead does not name William Mead's wife, but the Stamford town records do:
Philip, wife, Wilia Mead died 19.7.1657
Why Spencer P. Mead did not give the first name of William Mead's wife can only be conjectured - perhaps he did not recognize that Philip was a name that could be applied to either sex in seventeenth century England and her colonies. Another possibility is that the original town record had deteriorated to such a point by the time Mead looked at it that he could not make it out and did not wish to hazard a guess. Or he may merely have copied the information on the death of William Mead's wife from De Mille's earlier work on the Mead family without consulting the town records.
In his transcription of Stamford town records, Donald Lines Jacobus renders the name as "Kilvy," but follows it with a question mark and encloses it in brackets - indicating that he had trouble reading the original. Why neither Spencer P. Mead nor Jacobus consulted the transcribed version of the town records is not known. It was apparently used for the Barbour Collection, as that typescript does indeed give the name as Philip, albeit followed by a question mark in parentheses. And in his careful account of William Mead in Ancestry of Elizabeth Barrett Gillespie, Paul Prindle states that his wife was "Philippa."
With such an unusual first name, searching for a marriage between a William Mead and a Philip or Philippa in the IGI seemed a logical next step. The IGI contains no "controlled extraction" reference to a William Mead marrying a Philip, but it does contain a baptism for a Mary, daughter of William and "Philippe" Mead in the parish of St. Mary, Watford, Hertfordshire, on 17 March 1621. The New England immigrant is not known to have had a daughter Mary, but it is possible that she died young. This parish has been subjected to "controlled extraction" and there were no other baptisms at Watford that name both William and Philip explicitly. There was, however, a baptism for a Joseph, son of "William and [blank] Mead" at Watford on 25 April 1624, and it is known that the New England immigrant had a son Joseph. Baptisms for William Mead's children John and Martha are not found at Watford, but it is worth noting that William Mead of Watford had a brother John whose wife Martha was buried on 3 January 1632/3 - possibl the sources for these last two children.
The Mead family in Watford is found there from the 1540s. One of the peculiarities of this family is the use of the decidedly female name Priscilla as a male name commencing in 1545 and possibly into the 1680s.
Descendants of Richard Mead
Generation No. 1
1. Richard Mead was born Abt. 1515, and died 1559 in Watford, Herts, England. He married
Margaret Gouldhurst.
Children of Richard Mead and Margaret Gouldhurst are:
+ 2 i. William Mead, born 1546 in Watford, Herts, England.
+ 3 ii. Pricilla Mead, born 1548 in Watford, Herts, England; died 1606 in Watford, Herts, England.
4 iii.Roger Mead, born 1552.
5 iv.Richard Mead, born 1554 in Watford, Herts, England; died 1554 in Watford, Herts, England.
Generation No. 2
2. William Mead (Richard) was born 1546 in Watford, Herts, England. He married Cicely Tomson 1582.
Children of William Mead and Cicely Tomson are:
6 i. Ambrose Mead, born 1583 in Watford, Herts, England; died 1593 in Watford, Herts, England.
7 ii. William Mead, born 1585 in Watford, Herts, England; died 1593 in Watford, Herts, England.
8 iii.John Mead, born 1587 in Watford, Herts, England.
9 iv.Francis Mead, born 1588 in Watford, Herts, England.
10 v. Thomas Mead, born 1590 in Watford, Herts, England.
3. Pricilla Mead (Richard) was born 1548 in Watford, Herts, England, and died 1606 in Watford, Herts, England. He married Dorothy Grey 1579 in Watford, Herts, England.
Children of Pricilla Mead and Dorothy Grey are:
11 i. Sarah Mead, born 1581 in Watford, Herts, England.
12 ii. Richard Mead, born 1583 in Watford, Herts, England.
13 iii.Rose Mead, born 1585 in Watford, Herts, England.
+ 14 iv.John Mead, born 1591 in Watford, Herts, England.
+ 15 v. William Mead, born 1592 in Watford, Herts, England; died 1657 in Stamford, Ct..
+ 16 vi.Priscilla Mead, born 1594 in Watford, Herts, England; died 1648 in South Mimms, Hertfordshire.
17 vii.Rebecca Mead, born 1596 in Watford, Herts, England. She married Richard Lambert 1617.
Generation No. 3
14. John Mead (Pricilla, Richard) was born 1591 in Watford, Herts, England. He married Martha Lockey 1615 in Watford, Herts, England.
Children of John Mead and Martha Lockey are:
18 i. Sarah Mead, born 1619 in Watford.
19 ii. Mary Mead, born 1621 in Watford.
20 iii.Elizabeth Mead, born 1623 in Watford.
21 iv.Edward Mead, born 1630 in Watford.
15. William Mead (Pricilla, Richard) was born 1592 in Watford, Herts, England, and died 1657 in Stamford, Ct.. He married Philippe ? Abt. 1620 in Watford, Herts, England.
Notes for William Mead:
William and his family sailed in April 1635 from the Kent port of Lydd on the Elizabeth, under Captain Stagg. They settled first in Wethersfield, Conn, and then moved in 1641 to Stamford, where William was granted a home lot and five acres of land.
William is the ancestor of the Mead family of Connecticut, New York, Vermont and Meadville, Pennsylvania.
Gabriel Mead is the ancestor of the Mead family of Massachusetts.
The Meade family of Virginia is descended from an Irish family whose name was originally spelled Meagh.
The Mead family of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Loudoun County, Virginia, is said to have been descended from a Richard Mead of Buckinghamshire, possibly through his son Matthew. They were mainly Quakers. Richard Mead, the surgeon and physician to King George I was Matthew's son. There is a memorial to Dr. Richard Mead in Westminster Abbey. He is buried in Temple Church, the Middle Temple, London.
Children of William Mead and Philippe ? are:
22 i. Mary Mead, born 1622 in Watford, Herts, England; died 1626 in Watford, Herts, England.
23 ii. Joseph Mead, born 1623 in Watford, Herts, England. He married Mary Brown.
24 iii.John Mead, born Abt. 1628 in England; died 1699. He married Hannah Potter.
Notes for Hannah Potter:
There is a theory that Hannah Potter was the daughter of John Browne and Dorothy. After John's death, Dorothy's second husband was William Potter, who adopted Hannah and gave her the name Potter.
John Browne, b. 1598, came over on the Lyon in 1632 and settled in Watertown, Mass. His parents were Edmund Browne, b. 1547, and Mary Camphorne, b. 1562, daughter of William Cramphorne and Joane Plowe. Edmund Browne was the son of William Browne, b. abt 1505, and Joan, b. abt. 1510. All of the Brownes were born in Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire.
25 iv.Martha Mead, born Abt. 1630. She married John Richardson.
16. Priscilla Mead (Pricilla, Richard) was born 1594 in Watford, Herts, England, and died 1648 in South Mimms, Middlesex. He married Elizabeth Hobson 1623 in Ridge, Hertfordshire.
Children of Priscilla Mead and Elizabeth Hobson are:
26 i. John Mead, born 1624 in Ridge, Hertfordshire.
27 ii. Ellen Mead, born 1625 in Ridge, Hertfordshire.
28 iii.Elizabeth Mead, born 1627 in Ridge, Hertfordshire.
29 iv.Pricilla Mead, born 1632 in Ridge, Hertfordshire.
Medieval Medes in Herts
Herts Wills
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