♂Thomas Blanchard

Thomas Blanchard is the earliest known man of the Blanchard family of Weymouth in the Massachusetts Bay Colony^W. He was the ninth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through his son Nathaniel Blanchard.

Life

His birth and his parents are not known. Much of what is told of him comes from a nineteenth-century genealogical dictionary, which makes him an emigrant who “came in the Jonathan from London in 1639, with sev. ch.” during the Great Migration^W. The passenger list of the Jonathan, which sailed from London to Nantasket, at Hull, in 1639, names him with his wife Agnes. The dictionary places him at Braintree in 1646, then at Charlestown, and finally at Malden. It says his children were probably all by a first wife, and that a second wife, the widow Agnes Barnes, a sister of John Bent, died on the voyage together with her infant. Earlier, on 15 May 1637, a Salisbury marriage license appears to name him as a widower of Clatford licensed to marry ‘Ann’ Barnes, a widow of St Edmund’s, Sarum.

Death and will

The dictionary gives his death on 21 May 1654 and summarizes his will, made five days earlier, which named his wife Mary, his sons Nathaniel, Samuel and George, and George’s son Joseph. It adds a son Thomas, of Charlestown, who died early in February 1651.

Lines of descent

Both lines pass through his son Nathaniel, his grandson John Blanchard (1660–1733), probably the John recorded as Nathaniel’s son in 1660, and his great-grandson John Blanchard (1691–1752). They meet again in Wesley Blanchard (1844–1908), whose parents, Joseph Knapp Blanchard (1820–1885) and Elizabeth Trueworthy Blanchard (1825–1884), were both his descendants. From Wesley the descent to Nancy Jane Blanchard runs as one, through George Wesley Blanchard (1868–1939) and Kenneth Blanchard (1897–1975).

Notes

Voyage of 1639

Henry F. Waters, Passengers and Vessels that have arrived in America, gives the Jonathan’s voyage from London to Nantasket in 1639, with his wife Agnes. The arrival place is given as Hull, Suffolk, Massachusetts Bay Colony; the voyage itself is described as ending at Nantasket.

Marriage license, 1637

The Salisbury diocesan license of 15 May 1637, as abstracted in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. 68 (1914), p.107, in the article “Blanchard-Kent” by George S. Stewart, names Thomas, of Clatford, co. Southampton, yeoman and widower, and ‘Ann’ Barnes, of St Edmund’s, Sarum, widow. The bondsman was Henry Byley, of the same, tanner. The bride is written ‘Ann’ Barnes in the license; the Life section gives the second wife’s name as Agnes Barnes, from the nineteenth-century dictionary.

Parentage

The Goodworth Clatford, Hampshire, parish register records the baptism of “Nathanell Blanchard the sonne of Thomas and Elizabeth Blanchard” on 22 July 1631, and the burial of “Elizabeth Blanchard wife of Thomas Blanchard” on 23 July 1636. The register places the family at Clatford from 1629 to 1638. The emigrant’s will, dated 16 May 1654 and proved 20 June 1654 (Wyman, Charlestown, vol. 1, p.88), names his sons Nathaniel, Samuel and George, which is the basis for taking Nathaniel as the emigrant’s son.

John Blanchard (1660–1733)

The Weymouth vital records, volume 1, page 54, give “John, s. Nathaniell and Susan, Mar. 27, 1660.” That entry names a John as Nathaniel’s son in 1660, but it does not by itself settle that this is the John of the line below Nathaniel, so the body says probably.