The research journey for the ancestry of Rose (Stoughton) Otis began well over 30 years ago in the New York Public Library when I saw this from the New England Historical & Genealogical Register 5 (1852): 350:
Years later I began trying to prove that Elizabeth (Lewkenor) Stoughton was the daughter of Edmund Lewkenor. She is. Normally, if someone told me that a knight's daughter would marry a blacksmith, I would say that it wasn't true. But this manuscript was authored by Rose's brother Sir Nicholas Stoughton. Part of his testimony was that Sir Anthony was concerned at the onset of the English Civil War for his daughter, so he sent her in 1643 to New England with Captain (Israel) Stoughton. Rose's mother had predeceased her husband, so it does make sense. Plus Anthony Stoughton would died in January 1644. So, thus, she went to New England, met, and married Richard Otis, a blacksmith.
I descend from Rose twice. The first and main line is through her daughter Martha (Otis) Pinkham. When I started this journey, I was still under the influence of the Pinkham Genealogy which calls her Rose Pinkham. Nope. Her mother and her daughter was Rose, but she was a Martha. Here she is witnessing a Quaker marriage in Dover:
I can still remember being very excited that I could push a line back to the 1500s. Of course, that was the tip of the iceberg. Here's Rose's royal line.
I also descend from Rose Stoughton Otis through her daughter, Judith Otis. I am very curious as to the meaning of the "norroy kinge of armes" quoted in the manuscript.
Posted by: Witornado | 06/08/2014 at 11:25 PM