i.
Paul SEARS was born on 8 Feb 1637 in Marblehead, Essex Co. Massachusetts.
He died on 20 Feb 1707 in Yarmouth, Barnstable Co. Massachusetts.
4312 ii.
Silas SEARS.8624. Richard SEARS was born in 1590 in Amsterdam,
Holland. He died on 26 Aug 1676 in Yarmouth, Barnstable Co. Massachusetts.
!The Ancestry of Thomas Brainerd by Dwight Brainerd Richard Sears born in England,
about 1612; died at Yarmouth, MA, buried 26 Aug 1676; married Dorothy Jones.
A strange pedigree, in part at least concoted by that able genealogist but (alas!)
occasional fabricator of illustrious pedigrees, the late Horatio G Somerby, was
given circulation in 1857 when Rev. E H Sears included it in all innocence in
Pictures of the Olden Time. This pedigree was gently but effectively castigated
by Samuel Pearce May in 1886 in an article, "Some Doubts concerning the
Sears Pedigree" published in The new England Historical and Genealogical
Register (Vol 40, pp.261-268) Four years later, Mr May brought out an authoritative
genealogy of the Sears family. He was taxed at Plymouth, 25 Mar 1633, but seems
to have moved soon to Marblehead, then part of Salem, MA, where his brother-in-law,
Rev Anthony Thacher, settled in 1635. Early in 1639 he was among those who accompanied
Thacher in the settlement of Yarmouth. Freeman, 1652; Constable, 1660; Deputy
to the Plymouth General COurt, 1662. His will makes his "brother Thacher"
a trustee of his estate, and Thacher's son John calls Richard Sears "uncle."
These terms led formerly to an assumption that his wife Dorothy was a Thacher,
but that has been disproved, and it is now accepted that she was a sister of
Thacher's second wife, Elizabeth Jones. Their brother, Richard Jones of Dorchester,
MA, died intestate, and his widow in the inventory referred to her brother Thatcher,
and also made Anthony Thacher of Yarmouth a trustee of the estate. Samuel Jones,
son of Richard, in his will in 1661, made bequests to his six cousins in Yarmouth.
Thacher had three children by his second (Jones) wife, and Richard Sears had
three children, and that accounts for the six. (Savage, Genealogical Dictionary
(1862), Vol 4, p.46, was misled by the pedigree and "family tradition"
to the extent of giving Richard a mythical son, Knyvett.) Also New York Genealogical
and Biographical Record, Vol 42, pp.77-79. !CHILDREN-DEATH-BIOGRAPHY: GENEALOGICAL
AND FAMILY HISTORY of SOUTHERN NEW YORK and the HUDSON RIVER VALLEY, Vol II;1640-1913;
Lewis Historical Publishing Co, 1913; pp 507-510; Brewster, NY Public Library;
The several attempts of genealogists to trace the pre-American ancestry of the
Sears immigrant have met with many discouraging obstacles and few satisfactory
results; while it seems to be pretty well established that the family is one
of great antiquity there has always existed a doubt regarding its origin, and
there are those who are disposed to place it among the old Holland families and
bring forth Dutch intermarriages in support of their reasoning. In these annals
no attempt is made to investigate the subject of the origin of the family of
the Sears immigrant, for it is not known when or where he was born, and nothing
of his parentage, although there are various traditions and vague conclusions
regarding his forbears. The family in America is fully strong enough in every
material respect to stand forever without the warrant of distinguished pre-American
lineage. But in regard to the apparent lack of earlier data the Sears family
is only one in the long list of our best colonial families whose history back
of the immigrant is unkown, and the absence of definite knowledge of his ancestors
is not to be taken as evidence of doubtful or obscure origin, for the simple
truth is that it has been found impossible to trace his lineage in the mother
country. (I) Richard Sears appears in our New England colonial history with the
mention of his name in the records of the Plymouth colony tax list in 1633, when
he was one of fourty-four persons there assessed nine shillings in corn at six
shillings per bushel. From Plymouth he soon crossed over to Marblehead, MA, and
was taxed there, as shown by the Salem list, in 1637-38. He also had a grant
of four acres of land "where he had formerly planted," from which it
appears that he may have been in that plantation at some previous time. In 1639
he joined the colonists under Anthony Thacher and went to Cape Cod and founded
the town of Yarmouth. His first house was built on Quivet Neck, and afterwards
he built another house a short distance to the northwest of his first house there.
In 1643 the name of Richard Sears appears in the list of inhabitants of Yarmouth
"liable to bear arms." He was made freeman in 1652, grand juror in
1652, took the oath of allegiance and fidelity in 1653, was constable in 1660,
and representative to the court in Plymouth in 1662. In 1664 Richard Sears, husbandman,
purchased for twenty pounds from Allis, widow of Governor William Bradford, a
tract of land at Sesuit. He died in August, 1676, and was buried March 19, 1678-79;
but it is not certain that she was his only wife, or the mother of all or even
any of his children. Indeed, there is a presumption that he was previously married
and that his children may have been born of his former wife.
There is a RIchard SEARS in the IGI AFN 4JDS-SW (1590-1676) with a daughter listed
as Mary??? Contributed by Tom Greene, 4906 Apple Tree Dr, Alexandria, VA 22310
The Family Tree Maker website of Wayne C. Richards states Richard Sears was born
1590 in England and died 26 Aug 1676 in Yarmouth, Mass. It says he was the son
of John Bouchier Sayer and Marie Van Egmond. He was married to Dorothy JONES
@1632 in Yarmouth, Barnstable Co. Massachusetts.
8625.
Dorothy JONES died on 19 Mar 1678 in Yarmouth, Barnstable Co. Massachusetts.
She was born @1608 in Queen Camel, Somerset, England. Children were:
i.
Paul SEARS was born on 8 Feb 1637 in Marblehead, Essex Co. Massachusetts.
He died on 20 Feb 1707 in Yarmouth, Barnstable Co. Massachusetts.
4312 ii.
Silas SEARS.
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