Mary Standish (1660-1736)

Research Notes
2014 post by GeneX I have not exhausted the possibility of updated research on this topic, but 1933 article by Merton Taylor Goodrich titled "The Children and Grandchildren of Capt. Myles Standish" (NEHGR 87) reports about the family of Josias^2 Standish. Any number of children are reported bon to Josias and his second wife, Sarah Allen. Listed first among these is daughter Mary, born 1660 and died in 1736. She is reported to have married 4 January 1681 to James Cary.

The author discloses that Cary's wife's name is not called out in the marriage record, for which "Bridgewater Vital Records, quoted in The Mayflower Descendant, vol. 2, p. 90" is cited. Goodrich goes on to say, "that James Cary married Mary Standish is proved by her signature, 'Mary Cary' affixed t a deed releasing her right 2 share in the estate of her sister, Martha Standish."

Author Goodrich and the NEHGR editors provide two additional comments.

First Goodrich provides some backstory to the Shaw-Standish confusion, pointing to The Cary Family in America (1907), 11 for the claim that James Cary (b. 1652) married to "Mary Shaw" in 1682.

The editors extend the backsotry in a footnote (p. 158) saying "It is not possible that James Cary married (1) Mary Shaw and (2) Mary Standish?" Here reference is made to entries in different published accounds of Bridgewater, Massachusetts, marriages.* There are two published accounts that vary from the original record noted earlier (which does not report the name of the wife) by reporting Cary's wife was "Mary Shaw." There is then a third entry third entry that concerns an 18th century marriage (1722/3) of "James Cary and Mary [sic Sarah] Shaw."

Following the logic here presented by Goodrich and the NEHGR editors, the marriage vital records of 1681/2 that call her "Mary Shaw" are errors in print.


 * The two errors in print are cited as "Marriages in the Town of Bridgewater previous to Its Division" (NEHGR 21, 1867, p. 225, fourth entry) and "Vital Records of Bridgewater, vol. 2, pp. 75, 336." The 1722/3 marriage ("of course, of a later generation") cites "the same article, the third entry from the end."