From the Edgars to Symonds to Ayers - 9gg -

An edited repost from 2018 - focusing on the Ada Swasey Rogers family tree. These early colonial immigrants have very sketchy information about their lives, which is reflected below in my sharing different dates and relationships.

8 Feb is anniversary of the date of death of Susanna Symonds Ayers.

Death 8 FEB 1682/3 • Ipswich, Essex Co., MA

Susanna Symonds Ayers 8gg (1617 -1683) daughter of Mark Symonds 9gg (1584-1659) and Susan Edgar Symonds 9gg (1588-1617)

Here's info on her father and mother, Susan Edgar Symonds 9gg , which may be inacurate!(HERE)

Susan Edgar.  She had been born in 1588 in Birch, Essex, England to Joseph Edgar 10gg (1565-1694) and his wife (maybe named Ann).  There is also a record of a Joanna Edgar, whose father was Joseph Edgar, but I'm waiting for more information as to whether or not she was Susan's sister. Apparently Susan married Mark Symonds in either 1609 in England, or 1612 in New England.  Her first child, Susan was born and died in 1610 in France or England.  Their next daughter Mary Symonds was born in Ipswich, Essex County, MA.  And their third one, Susanna was born in 1617 in Hull Yorkshire, England.  OK, there are some probable impossibilities here.

There were ships going back and forth to New England from old England regularly.  But why would Susan Edgar Symonds go back to England in 1617 when her last daughter was born?  Are the records (as few as there are) incorrect, or refer to another person entirely?

And how long did mother Susan live after the birth of my great times 8 grandmother?  We're pretty sure she died in 1619.  Her husband married his second wife, Joanna in 1620.  That meant the little girls were Mary 5 and Susanna 2 at the most when their mother died. 

It should be noted that some Ancestry trees says Susan and Joanna were the same person, married to Mark Symonds.

King Phillips War (colonials retreat after Indians burn Brookfield (Quaboag) MA (with support from French)

My great times 8 grandparents, Susanna and Captain John Ayers had 8 or 9 children before he was killed by Indians in 1675.  In her petition to courts to receive the property which had been abandoned at Quaboag, she said she had 7 sons and 1 daughter.  But other sources said she had 6 children.

Looking on my Ancestry tree, I've got John III, Thomas, Joseph, Susanna, Edward, Samuel, Mark and Nathaniel.  They all retreated from Quabog, and grew up in Ipswich, and were parties to the petitions their mother posed to reclaim her husband's properties.

Oh geese, I just found a record of probate for Captain John Ayers, of Quaboag, listing an inventory of his possessions in 1676. Well, I can't read it, it's just listed at Ancestry.  I'm a bit surprised, and wish I could read it, because his tavern had been burned down by the Indians in 1675 when he was killed, and everyone in the town had fled. Perhaps it's related to how Susanna made her petition.

Print of Brookfield (Quaboag) MA being burned by Indians 1675

This post is part of my father's mother, 
Ada Swasey Rogers Family Tree. 
The photo shows her mother, 
my great grandmother,
Zulieka Granger Swasey as a young woman.