♀Joan Walsele

Joan Walsele (died 1597) was a widow of Chard, in Somerset, England, who had married Walter Deane, a yeoman of South Chard, in 1565 and outlived him. She was the eleventh great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through her son William Deane (died 1634).

Family

On 12 November 1565 Walter Deane and Joan Walsele were married at Buckland St Mary, in Somerset. They had a son, William, and two daughters, Eleanor and Joan, all three named in both their parents’ wills. William was most likely the William Deane of South Chard who died in 1634, and whose son Walter sailed from Weymouth in 1637 and became an early settler of Taunton, in Plymouth Colony^W.

Widowhood and death

Walter made his will on 7 July 1585, naming her and making William his executor, and he was dead by 10 July 1591, when it was proved. As a widow of Chard, Joan made her own will on 29 March 1597. She named her son William, her daughters Eleanor and Joan, and her granddaughter Joane, William’s daughter. She died within weeks, and the will was proved on 10 May 1597.

Notes

Sources

The marriage and both wills come from John B. Threlfall, “Additions to the Deane Ancestry in England”, New England Historical and Genealogical Register 139 (1985), pp. 324–325. Joan’s will is abstracted in the Somerset Record Society’s volume of wills; it names “Joane, daughter of my son William”, and spells her daughter’s name Elianor. Walter’s will is registered in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury as 56 Sainberbe. The marriage at Buckland St Mary is from Threlfall’s transcript of the parish register, as listed by H. Clark Dean in NEHGR 147 (1993), p. 252.

Her son William

Threlfall calls Walter Deane of South Chard “the earliest proven ancestor of John and Walter Deane” of Taunton: “He was their grandfather”. The wills of Walter and Joan name their son William but neither names his sons, so the link to William Deane of South Chard, who made his will in 1634 and named sons John and Walter, rests on Threlfall’s study.