♀Ann (surname unknown)

Ann (living in 1716) lived on a plantation in Talbot County, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, that her husband, Francis Neal (died 1716), left her for her life. She may have been the sixth great-grandmother of Floyd Amatus Delahorne (1922–2014), through Francis Wingfield Neal (1680–1745), her husband’s eldest son.

Life

She was living on 19 October 1716, when her husband made his will, dated in the Quaker manner by the number of the month rather than its name. He died before 27 November 1716, when the will was proved in Talbot County. His wife Ann was left “my Dwelling Plantation & Neck” for her life, to pass after her to their son Edward, who was to live with his mother. The will names eight children: the eldest son, Francis; the sons Jeremiah, Jonathan, Samuel and Edward; and the daughters Mary, Sarah, the wife of Robert Register, and Johannah, the wife of Charles Climar. She may have been Francis Neal’s second wife, and the stepmother rather than the mother of his eldest son.

Notes

Her children

The will leaves the plantation to Ann for her life and has Edward “living wth his Mother during her Life”, so Edward was most likely her son. It does not say which of the other children were hers. The eldest son, Francis, was born about 1680 and by 1716 was settled on his own part of Hickory Ridge, while Edward still lived with his mother; Christou and Wright’s compiled Colonial Families of the Eastern Shore of Maryland, vol. 4, reads the will as providing for Edward during his minority. A gap of that kind between the eldest and youngest sons can mean a second marriage, so Ann’s place as the mother of Francis Wingfield Neal rests only on the order of the family’s dates.

The name Farrell

Family trees and a compiled genealogy of 1971 give the surname Farrell, or Ferrell, to an Ann Neal, but they attach it to the wife of Francis Wingfield Neal, and the compilation is muddled over which Francis was which. No record gives a maiden name for either Ann, and her parents and the dates of her birth, marriage and death are not known.

The descent to Floyd Amatus Delahorne

The descent from her to Floyd Amatus Delahorne passes through John Dillahunty (1780–1830), whose descent from John Dillahunty (1750–1797) of Davidson County, Tennessee, is probable but not proved.