♂William Macye

William Macye was a man of Colyton, in Devon, England, whose daughter Anne was married there in 1544. He was the thirteenth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through his daughter Anne Macye.

John Clarke and Anne Macye were married at Colyton on 9 June 1544; the register names him as John Clarke of Colyford, a village beside Colyton and then within its parish, and her as the daughter of William Macye of Colyton. Their daughter Agnes, written “Annes” in the register, was probably the child christened at Colyton on 16 May 1548, and on 4 February 1578/9 she married Richard Conant of East Budleigh. That made William Macye the great-grandfather of Roger Conant^W, Agnes’s youngest son, who led the few settlers who began Salem, in Massachusetts, in 1626.

Notes

Sources

The marriage of 1544 and the christening and marriage of Agnes Clarke are from the parish register of Colyton, as printed in A History and Genealogy of the Conant Family (Frederick Odell Conant, 1887). The marriage entry reads “John Clarke, of Colyford, to Anne Macye, dau: of William Macye, of Colyton”. It is the only record of him; his wife, his baptism and his death are not known.

The day of the marriage

The register as printed in 1887 gives the marriage as 9 June 1544. Another reading of the original register gives “the xxix daye of June”, which would make it 29 June.

Agnes Clarke

Several men named John Clarke were living in Colyton parish at the time, and the christening of 16 May 1548 names only the father, “John Clarke, of Coliton”. The Conant genealogy of 1887 identifies the child as the daughter of John Clarke and Anne Macye.