♂John Aspinall

John Aspinall was a man of Boston, in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, who married Christian Ager there on 19 May 1701; his wife bore him a daughter, also named Christian, on 2 August 1704. He was the seventh great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through his daughter Christian Aspinall (born 1704).

Family in Boston

The Boston register of births records the daughter’s birth on 2 August 1704 to a John Aspinall and his wife Christian. This John is probably the man who married Christian Ager there in 1701; the reasons are in the notes.

Lines of descent

The younger Christian’s son Noah Thayer (born 1745) was the father of Mary Thayer (1770–1827). Two of Mary’s grandchildren, Joseph Knapp Blanchard (1820–1885) and Elizabeth Trueworthy Blanchard (1825–1884), married each other, and their son Wesley Blanchard (1844–1908) descended from John Aspinall through both parents.

Notes

The marriage at Boston

The Boston city register entry for 19 May 1701 names the couple as John Aspinwall and Christian Ager, and gives “Mr Cotton Mather” as the minister. The Aspinwall genealogy of 1901 cites the same entry and spells the surname Aspinwall; it is given here as Aspinall.

The birth at Boston

The birth is entered in Boston’s register of births as “Christian daughter of John Aspinall and Christian his Wife, Born 2 August 1704” (Boston Births 1700-1800, Record Commissioners’ report vol. 24, p. 26). The volume has no other Aspinall birth for the century. The register does not link this John with the groom of 1701; that identification rests on both entries naming a John Aspinall with a wife Christian, and on the 1701 marriage falling before the birth.

His parents, where he came from, and when he was born and died are not known.