Monday Is for Mothers: Thanklord Perkins (About 1610 - After 1675)

In the first record we have of this 8X great grandmother, Thanklord Perkins was married to Ralph Shepard at St. Bride's, Fleet Street in London on the 21st of May, 1632.

[Ancestry.com. London, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1812 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. Original data: Church of England Parish Registers, 1538-1812. London, England: London Metropolitan Archives. Images produced by permission of the City of London Corporation Libraries, Archives. ]

A year later the baptismal record for the couple's first child, Sarah, at St. Dunstan's in Stepney lists only her father's name, giving his occupation as tailor residing in Limehouse.

[Ancestry.com. London, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1812 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. Original data: Church of England Parish Registers, 1538-1812. London, England: London Metropolitan Archives. Images produced by permission of the City of London Corporation Libraries, Archives.]

The couple's non-conformist religious beliefs led to Ralph, Thanklord and Sarah's departure from London on June 30, 1635 aboard the ship Abigail bound for New England. Thanklord's age was given as 23 and she was pregnant with her second child, Thomas, who is one of my 7X great grandfathers.*

Their first residence was in Watertown (presumably where Thomas was born), followed by removals to Dedham in 1637, then Weymouth in 1639, on to Malden by 1650 and ending up in Concord by 1666.

In 1651 Thankslord joined with 35 other women in a petition in defense of their minister Rev. Marmaduke Matthews.

[Ancestry.com. The history of Malden, Massachusetts, 1633-1785 [database on-line]. Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2004. Original data: Corey, Deloraine Pendre,. The history of Malden, Massachusetts, 1633-1785. Malden: The author, 1899.]

Here's a tracing of her signature from that document.

[From Ralph Shephard, Puritan by Ralph Hamilton Shepard, 1893.

Source: Google Books]

Several land records in Malden name Ralph "with the assent and consent of Thankslord my wife" and she "acknowledged" a deed giving some property in Concord to their son-in-law Walter Power** on March 28, 1675. This is the last date we have for her. Her date of death and place of burial are unknown.



*My descent from Thomas.

[Ancestry.com]

**Walter Power married their daughter Trial (1641-1708) who's my 7th great grandmother.

[Ancestry.com]

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