♀Margaret (surname unknown)

Margaret (fl. 1642–1665) was the wife of William Filley of Windsor, in the Connecticut Colony^W, whose admission to the Windsor church in July 1651 was followed within three weeks by the baptism of four of her children on a single day. She was the eighth great-grandmother of Frederic Roger Curtis (1928–2007), through her son Samuel Filley (1643–1712).

Her maiden name and her parents are not known, and no record of her birth has been found. Family trees give her surname as Cockney, but no record confirms it. A history of Windsor published in 1891–92 gives her marriage to William Filley as 2 September 1642, citing the town’s early church record. The Windsor records name the couple as the parents of Samuel, born there on 24 September 1643, the first of eight children, three sons and five daughters, entered in the town’s records between 1643 and 1665.

Margaret was admitted to the Windsor church on 17 July 1651, and on 3 August 1651 four of her children, Samuel, John, Elizabeth and Mary, the eldest nearly eight years old, were baptized together. In the churches of New England at that time only the children of church members could be baptized, so the older children’s baptisms had to wait until a parent was admitted. Her husband was not admitted to the church’s communion until 8 March 1673, more than twenty years after her. Her son Samuel married Anna Gillet at Windsor in 1663, and her daughter Mary married Joseph Skinner there in 1666. No record of her death has been found.