♀Isabell (surname unknown)

Isabell (living in 1621) was a woman of Horsmonden, in Kent, whose husband Thomas Doggett made her the sole executrix of his will in 1621. She was the eleventh great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through her daughter Mary Doggett (christened 1600).

Thomas’s children Elizabeth, Mary and Thomas are said to have been christened at Horsmonden on 10 July 1597, 21 September 1600 and 19 October 1606, and Isabell was probably their mother. When Thomas made his will, he left ten shillings to the poor of the parish, threescore pounds to his son Thomas, then fourteen, thirty pounds to his daughter Mary, then twenty, and five pounds each to two grandchildren, Elizabeth and Marye Willard. The residue of his goods went to “Isabell my lovinge wife”, whom he made sole executrix, on condition that she make certain payments. The will was proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury^W on 26 July 1621. A compiled genealogy gives her burial at Horsmonden, Kent, on 14 October 1641.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through her daughter Mary, who is said to have married George Lewis at Horsmonden on 1 November 1624 and went with him to Plymouth Colony^W in the 1630s, and then through Mary’s son James Lewis (1631–1713) and James’s daughter Sarah Lewis (1661–1732). They meet again in Wesley Blanchard (1844–1908), whose parents, Joseph Knapp Blanchard (1820–1885) and Elizabeth Trueworthy Blanchard (1825–1884), were both descended from Thomas Doggett and Isabell. From Wesley the descent to Nancy Jane Blanchard runs as one, through George Wesley Blanchard (1868–1939) and Kenneth Blanchard (1897–1975).

Notes

Mother of Thomas’s children

Her maiden name and the date of her marriage are not known. The christening entries name only the father. Isabell is taken as the mother of Elizabeth, Mary and Thomas because she was Thomas Doggett’s wife when he made his will in 1621 and no earlier wife of his is known; Gordon Lewis Remington’s 1997 article on Mary Doggett in The American Genealogist (volume 72, pages 321 to 328) identifies Mary as Thomas’s daughter.

Burial

The date of 14 October 1641 comes from Gordon Lewis Remington’s article in The American Genealogist (volume 72, 1997, page 327), as WikiTree quotes it. The Horsmonden parish register entry for the burial is not known. Find a Grave, the only other source to give her death, lists her as “Isabel Martin Doggett” and gives the month as October 1641. WikiTree gives a different date, 23 August 1642, in a note that cites a Concord, Massachusetts source.

Sources

Isabell is named in her husband’s will, registered in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury under the name “Thome Doggett” of Horsmonden and proved 26 July 1621. Remington’s abstract of the will, as quoted, dates it 2 May 1621. The christenings of the three children and Mary’s marriage to George Lewis are from a listing of the English parish registers; the ages given for Thomas and Mary in 1621 follow from those christening dates.