♀Mary Adnett

Mary Adnett (buried 27 August 1615) was a woman of Kingston upon Thames, in Surrey, England, who married the beer brewer Robert Chelsham and, after his death, Robert Tiffin. She was probably the tenth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through her daughter Sarah Chelsham (baptized 1588). With her sister Agnes she was an heir of her father, an Adnett “late of Kingston”, and in 1592 she was left a widow and her husband’s executrix.

Family

She is said to have been the daughter of Thomas Adnett and his wife Margaret, though the 1586 deed leaves her father’s first name blank. In a Kingston deed of 27 August 1586 she and her sister Agnes, the wife of John Gilpin, a tailor, are described as the “daughters and heirs” of an Adnett “late of Kingston”, and their husbands were parties to it with them. Her mother is thought to have married a second husband, John Mochett, a woollen draper of Kingston, whose will of 11 December 1579 left a Kingston house, then in Robert Chelsham’s tenure, jointly to Robert Chelsham and John Gilpin.

Robert Chelsam and Mary Hadnet, as the register writes their names, were married at Kingston on 16 January 1575/6. Eight children are known: daughters Susan, Rose, Grace, Mary, Magdalen, Sarah and Elizabeth, and a son John. Sarah was baptized at Kingston on 5 May 1588 and Elizabeth on 4 March 1589/90.

Widowhood

Robert made his will on 25 August 1592, when Sarah was four. He left twenty-five pounds each to his daughters Susan, Mary, Magdalen, Sarah and Elizabeth and thirty pounds to his son John, made his wife Mary his executrix, and named his “brother” Mark Collins overseer. He died within the month: the will was proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury^W on 21 September 1592.

By 1605 Mary had married again; her second husband was Robert Tiffin. She was most likely the “Mary Tyffine the wiffe of Robarte” buried at Kingston on 27 August 1615.

Notes

Sources

The Kingston upon Thames register entries for the family, the 1586 deed and an abstract of Robert Chelsham’s 1592 will are printed in Robert Battle and Henry B. Hoff’s study of the English ancestry of Rodolphus Elmes in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register (2022).

Her name and parents

The marriage register writes her name Hadnet; the deed and the article give Adnett. The deed is known from the article’s note on it, which leaves her father’s first name blank. The article names her parents as Thomas and Margaret Adnett. The FreeREG transcript for Surrey (1538–1620) has no Thomas Adnett at Kingston; its only Adnet there is a John, buried on 5 July 1564. That is a lead against the article’s forename, not yet resolved.

Her mother’s second husband

The will of John Mochett, woollen draper of Kingston upon Thames, is in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury records at The National Archives. It is dated 11 December 1579 and was proved on 13 February 1579/80. It names his wife, written Margarett, as one of his executors, and devises a Kingston house, in Robert Chelsham’s tenure, jointly to John Gilpin and Robert Chelsham. The will does not call either man a son-in-law. That the testator’s wife is Mary’s mother, and the widow of Thomas Adnett, rests on the 2022 article.

Her second marriage and burial

The second marriage, and the date by which it had taken place, come from the 2022 article. The burial entry names her only as Mary, the wife of Robert Tyffine, so that it is hers rests on the article’s identification.

Sarah’s parentage

That the Sarah Chelsham who married John Elmes was Mary’s daughter is probable rather than proved. Her own will of 1653 names “my loving sister Elizabeth Sturmey” and makes “Mr John Chelsham” an overseer, and Mary’s daughter Elizabeth married Robert Sturme at Kingston on 27 February 1608/9.