(surname unknown) · ◉ direct ancestor
♀Agnes (surname unknown)
Dates not yet known.
Agnes (living in 1526) is known from a single record, the will of her daughter Elizabeth, widow of Humphrey Elmes of Harpsden, near Henley-on-Thames in Oxfordshire. She was the thirteenth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through her daughter Elizabeth (died 1526).
Humphrey Elmes made his will on 12 July 1526 and was dead by early October. On 2 October 1526 Elizabeth, now a widow, made her own will, and among her bequests was a ring “unto Agnes Polsted my mother”. By then Agnes was the wife of Thomas Polsted, whom Elizabeth called “my father in lawe”, a term then often used for a stepfather; she left him “a great Ryng” and made him one of her executors, with “Henry Polsted my brother”. She also named Margaret and Anne Polsted as her sisters. The will does not say whether these Polsteds were Agnes’s own children by Thomas or his by an earlier marriage. Agnes’s grandchildren in the will were Anthony Elmes and his sisters Anne, Elizabeth, Dorothy, Katherine and Martha. Elizabeth’s will was proved in the Prerogative Court of CanterburyW on 20 October 1526.
Notes
Her name
Elizabeth’s will calls her mother Agnes Polsted, the surname of her husband in 1526. Because Elizabeth called Thomas Polsted her father-in-law, he was most likely her stepfather, which would make him Agnes’s second husband at least; the name of her earlier husband, Elizabeth’s father, is not on record. A 2022 study of the Elmes family in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register gives Elizabeth’s maiden name as Packer, which would make that earlier husband a Packer. No record of the family names it, so Agnes’s own surname is left blank here.
Family time line
Parents not yet found. This line is still being traced.
Recorded events
| Event | When | Where | Evidence ?on record - the record itself, its image, or a transcript or printed copy of it has been read from a compiled source - an index, a printed genealogy or a memorial page says so not yet documented - in the family record, no source attached yet |
|---|---|---|---|
| Living at household of her second husband Thomas Polsted the elder, 'of Stoke next Guldeford Surrey Henley upon Thames Oxford', whose will dated 6 Mar 1528/9 names his wife Agnes (Battle and Hoff, NEHGR 176 (2022) p.236 n.9); Stoke, the first place named, was the Polsted seat - compiled, no record seen |
6 Mar 1528/29 | Stoke-next-Guildford, Surrey, England | from a compiled source |
Sources
- Battle, Robert, and Henry B. Hoff, "The English Ancestry of Rodolphus1 Elmes of Scituate, Massachusetts, and His Cousins John and Samuel Sellon ...," The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 176 (2022): 233-248 — Living at, about this person
- Will of Elizabeth Elmes, Widow, of Harpsden, Oxfordshire, 1526 (PCC, TNA PROB 11/22/82) — about this person, family
Borders as they stood about 1530, from the historical-basemaps project, the Newberry Library's Atlas of Historical County Boundaries (states and territories, 1783 on) and Natural Earth; the colonies and provinces are drawn along today's lines.