Madness Monday: Hannah (Holman) Spear (c. 1669-1751)

If you can have a favorite brick wall, Hannah Holman, the wife of Nathaniel Spear of Braintree, Mass. is my favorite.  Most 17th century women, whose parentage is unknown, lack marriage records that give them a surname.  Not so in this case.  In fact, there is an abundance of records for Hannah, but still no provable parents.  Hannah married on 8 August 1689 at Braintree.  She died there on 4 February 1750/1 at the age of 81 years.  She and Nathaniel had ten children recorded at Braintree born between 1690 and 1713.  If her age at death is reliable, Hannah was born about 1670.  If 45 at the birth of her last child in 1713, she was born in 1668, which would also make her 21 at her marriage.  Her husband was born on 15 May 1665.  All in all, we can say that she was born between 1668 and 1670 and it was unlikely that she was a young widow.  Therefore her maiden name is Holman.  The problem is there is no available Holman family in which she can be placed.  There are no grantor deeds for Hannah Spear in Middlesex, Essex or Plymouth County Deeds.  Suffolk County Deeds 59:16 shows Hannah Spear as a widow with all surviving children.  I thought that perhaps the name was mis-transcribed so I read the original marriage record at Braintree Historical Society and it is Holman.  So now I think that the clerk got her name wrong.  Was she a Tolman?  Holmes?  This is actually no better than being Hannah (---).  She names her children (in order) Hannah and Nathaniel (after she and her husband); John, Mary, David, Joseph, Nathan, Thomas, Margaret and Lydia.  Nathaniel's mother was named Mary and his father George.  So are we looking for a John, David, Joseph, Nathan or Thomas?  The work The Descendants of George Spear who settled at Braintree, Massachusetts 1642-1988 by Verne Raymond Spear (1988) punts on this question.  Of the two major Holman families, John Holman of Dorchester (the most logical) is ruled out by the work of Alfred Lyman Holman which appeared in the New England Historical & Genealogical Register 72 (1918):185 et seq.  The other family William Holman of Cambridge, is found in both the Parker-Ruggles Genealogy and the Mayflower Five Generation Project for Degory Priest.  There are several Holmes families, but most have appeared already in the Great Migration Project.  So, who was she?

[Previously posted on 12/7/07]