Who was Emily’s mom?
A question that has been bugging me for a long time: “Who was the mother of Emily Field the wife of Smith Elliott and daughter of William Field?”
Emily and Smith were my husband’s third great-grandparents and I’ve never had clarity on the identity of Emily’s mother. Of the 219 trees on Ancestry that have Emily in their tree, most identify her mom as Mary Rogers. But none of them, and I mean NONE, have any supporting documents. Same with the tree on FamilySearch. You can guess how much stock I put in that noise.
After ignoring this for too long a time, I decided to knuckle-down and get to the bottom of this.
Emily’s father, William Field, had two documented marriages in Mason County, Kentucky: Elizabeth Jones on 21 December 1796[1]; and, Cecelia Anderson on 24 January 1807.[2] Since Emily was born in 1805, it seems obvious that Elizabeth Jones must have been her mother, and to be fair, a few Ancestry trees have that. So where did “Mary Rogers” come from? Out of thin air? As near as I can tell Mary Rogers was first identified as William’s first wife in 1958 with the publication of “Historical Southern Families, Volume II,” by John Bennett Boddie.[3]
Boddie’s “Historical Southern Families” series consists of twenty-three volumes and he and his wife authored some forty-eight books on numerous families and their genealogy.[4] A pretty impressive body of work. However, he has no citation for an alleged marriage between William and Mary and fails to mention Elizabeth Jones at all.
After looking through birth records, marriage records, burial records, probate records, and the like, I found nothing to support the existence of a Mary Rogers much less her marriage to William. It is telling that Boddie cites the correct date of the bond for the Field-Anderson marriage, but has no date for the alleged Field-Rogers marriage. The fact that he must have had access to the Mason County marriage bonds makes me wonder how he could have made this mistake. A cringe-worthy mistake. Nevertheless, this is an important lesson in verifying your facts and citing to original documents.
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[1] Mason County, Kentucky, Marriage Bonds, 1796, William Field and Cecily Anderson, 24 January 1807; image, “Kentucky, County Marraiges, 1797-1954,” FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QSQ-G9SS-99CQ-J?i=138&cc=1804888&personaUrl=%2Fark%3A%2F61903%2F1%3A1%3AQ2QD-QWHP : accessed 30 August 2022), FHL microfilm 5552765, image 139.
[2] Mason County, Kentucky, Marriage Bonds, 1807, William Field and Elizabeth Jones, 21 December 1796; image, “Kentucky, County Marraiges, 1797-1954,” FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QSQ-G9S7-9ZC8?i=46&cc=1804888&personaUrl=%2Fark%3A%2F61903%2F1%3A1%3AQ2QD-QCMT : accessed 30 August 2022), FHL microfilm 5552766, image 47.
[3] John Bennett Boddie, Historical Southern Families, Volume II (Redwood City, CA : Clearfiled Company, 1958), 229; image, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 29 August 2022).
[4] Per Worldcat.org.
Mason County, Kentucky courthouse is pictured below. Constructed in 1848 in Maysville. Photo by Jimmy Emerson, DVM (7 November 2009), https://www.flickr.com/photos/auvet/4103115163.
