ichard Sears born in England, about 1612;
died at Yarmouth, MA, buried 26 Aug 1676; married Dorothy Jones.
A strange pedigree, in part at least concocted 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.) The Ancestry of Thomas Brainerd by Dwight Brainerd.
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 unknown, 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
Is John Satre his father? RIN -72. [Sears Homepage]
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