Mary Neeld

(say 1590 - )
Mary would have been born say 1590.1 An alternate form of her name was Mary Nield. Mary is often reported to have married John Dutton the legendary progenitor of the family in New England. In fact, Mary Neeld exists only as the reported spouse of John. She is simply the creation of confused genealogists of the 19th and 20th Centuries. The error has been perpetuated because she fills a frustrating void.

A John Dutton was one of the early settlers of eastern Pennsylvania. (This John's history and descendants are well documented, according to researchers I find credible.) He married one Mary Darlington. After John's death Mary, his widow, married a Mister Neeld (or Nield). Later recordkeeping misidentified Mary (Darlington) (Dutton) Neeld as Mary (Neeld) Dutton, and "married her" to the John Dutton who was supposedly the patriarch of the Massachusetts clan.2

Cited documentation

  1. [S167] There is no evidence whatever for this assertion. It exists solely for sorting and categorization purposes.
  2. [S167] The only support for Mary's existence is that the error is so often repeated. I would not bother to record her at all, except that since I first posted my genealogical web site, I have received numerous well-meaning attempts to correct my "forgetting" John Dutton's "well known" wife Mary Neeld.

    A pox on the person who first invented her! And lasting honor and gratitude to any person who can supply credible, primary, contemporary, documentation identifying the actualy antecedents of the old colonial family of Dutton in Reading, Woburn, and Billerica, Massachusetts from the first half of the 17th Century.
 
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