Martha (-----) Ide WAS NOT Thomas Bliss's Daughter
Despite at least one published correction, it is still widely believed that THOMAS1 BLISS of Braintree and Rehoboth, Mass., had a daughter MARTHA and that she married NICHOLAS IDE. Neither is true.
That a marriage between Nicholas Ide and Martha Bliss occurred at Springfield in 1647 is a fabrication and a confused one at that. There were two, contemporary Thomas Blisses, one of Rehoboth (d. there between 7 Oct. 1647 [will] and 21 Oct. 1647 [estate inventory]), the other of Hartford, Conn. (d. there shortly before 14 Feb. 1650/1; his wife was Margaret Hulins [TAG 52(1976): 193-97, 60(1984): 202]). At least one of Hartford Thomas’s children was living at Springfield by 1646, and others followed. Thomas of Rehoboth and his children, on the other hand, never resided at Springfield. NO DAUGHTER MARTHA IS RECORDED FOR EITHER MAN. (Two of the more reliable secondary sources pertaining to these men and their families are Donald L. Jacobus and Edgar R. Waterman, HALE, HOUSE AND RELATED FAMILIES [1952], pp. 476-80, and Aaron T. Bliss, GENEALOGY OF THE BLISS FAMILY IN AMERICA, 3 vols. [1982] [hereinafter BLISS FAMILY], 1:27-37.) While a baptismal date of 8 December 1622 is often attributed to Martha, supposed daughter of Rehoboth Thomas Bliss, it was his son Nathaniel who was baptized at Daventry, Northamptonshire, England, on that date (BLISS FAMILY, 1:36).
The reference in Thomas Bliss’s will to "my sonninlaw Nicolas Ide," seems to indicate that Ide had married Bliss’s daughter. This, however, is not the case. With his first wife, Dorothy Wheatlie, Bliss had seven known children (baptized 1615-1626), of whom none was named Martha (BLISS FAMILY, 1:36). Bliss’s will, dated "the seventh day of the eighth month [October] 1647," names only three of these seven; it nevertheless speaks of "my fouer Children" (Plymouth Colony Wills, 1:67 [will], 68 [inventory, dated "the 21 of the eighth month (Oct.) 1647"]). The will refers to Bliss’s surviving daughters' husbands in association with their respective wives: "my eldest Daughter [Elizabeth] and her husband Thomas Willmore [i.e., Wilmarth]" and "my Daughter Mary and her husband Nathaneell harmon." "[S]onninlaw” Nicholas Ide, by contrast, is mentioned only in relation to Ide’s son "Nathaneell." While these facts are significant in their own right, they become all the more so when it is understood that the term SON-IN-LAW was commonly used at this time to mean STEPSON.
The conclusion is inescapable: Nicholas Ide, by virtue of his widowed mother's having become Thomas Bliss's second wife, was Bliss's stepson and NOT the husband of a Bliss daughter. That Ide was the fourth of Bliss's "fouer Children" is confirmed by the petition of "Nicolas Hyde" to the Plymouth Colony General Court, 7 June 1648, "for a childs portion of the estat[e] of Thomas Blisse, desseased" (Nathaniel B. Shurtleff and David Pulsifer, eds., RECORDS OF THE COLONY OF NEW PLYMOUTH IN NEW ENGLAND [1620-1691], 12 vols. in 10 [Boston, 1855-61], 2:126 [microfiche 2/2, FHL set #6046866]). Die-hards who might argue that Nicholas could have married his stepsister should recall that there is no record of Thomas Bliss’s having had a daughter Martha. New England colonists, moreover, would have considered such a marriage as bordering on incest.
Nicholas Ide's wife Martha’s maiden name is unknown.
More Replies:
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Re: Martha (-----) Ide WAS NOT Thomas Bliss's Daughter
Gene Zubrinsky 2/09/02
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Re: Martha (-----) Ide WAS Thomas Bliss's Daughter
Grace Smith 9/13/03
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What's the Evidence That the Two Marthas Were One?
Gene Zubrinsky 9/15/03
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Re: What's the Evidence That the Two Marthas Were One?
Tom Bliss 7/16/06
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Re: What's the Evidence That the Two Marthas Were One?
Gene Zubrinsky 7/18/06
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Re: What's the Evidence That the Two Marthas Were One?
Tom Bliss 3/19/07
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Re: What's the Evidence That the Two Marthas Were One?
Tom Bliss 3/19/07
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Re: What's the Evidence That the Two Marthas Were One?
Gene Zubrinsky 8/13/07
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Re: What's the Evidence That the Two Marthas Were One?
Jerry Parker 11/24/08
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Re: What's the Evidence That the Two Marthas Were One?
Gene Zubrinsky 11/26/08
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Re: What's the Evidence That the Two Marthas Were One?
Jerry Parker 11/26/08
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Re: What's the Evidence That the Two Marthas Were One?
Gene Zubrinsky 11/26/08
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Re: What's the Evidence That the Two Marthas Were One?
Jerry Parker 11/27/08
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Re: What's the Evidence That the Two Marthas Were One?
Gene Zubrinsky 11/28/08
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Re: What's the Evidence That the Two Marthas Were One?
Jerry Parker 11/28/08
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Re: What's the Evidence That the Two Marthas Were One?
Gene Zubrinsky 11/28/08
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Re: What's the Evidence That the Two Marthas Were One?
Jerry Parker 11/29/08
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Re: What's the Evidence That the Two Marthas Were One?
Gene Zubrinsky 11/29/08
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Re: What's the Evidence That the Two Marthas Were One?
Jerry Parker 11/30/08
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Re: What's the Evidence That the Two Marthas Were One?
Gene Zubrinsky 11/30/08
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Re: What's the Evidence That the Two Marthas Were One?
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Re: What's the Evidence That the Two Marthas Were One?
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Re: What's the Evidence That the Two Marthas Were One?
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Re: What's the Evidence That the Two Marthas Were One?
Gene Zubrinsky 11/28/08
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Re: What's the Evidence That the Two Marthas Were One?
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What's the Evidence That the Two Marthas Were One?
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Re: Martha (-----) Ide WAS Thomas Bliss's Daughter