Monday Is for Mothers: Joyce Mrs Boyse (About 1618 - ?)

Joyce is another early female ancestor whose maiden name isn't known. This paternal ninth great grandmother was almost certainly born in England, although we don't know where, and emigrated to Virginia at some point before about 1637 when she married Cheney Boyce,* most likely in Charles City. As far as we know the couple had one child "Tho: Boyce the onely sonne of Chainey Boyce" who was born about 1638.

[Captain John Smith’s map, first published in England in 1612, was the primary map of the Chesapeake region used by colonists for nearly a century. Source: National Park Service, Captain John Smith Chesapeake National  Historic Trail]

After Cheney's death around 1643, Joyce was Executrix of his estate and ordered by the Virginia court to provide Thomas Boyce an "Annual Maintenance and to deliv'r him a very considerable estate at the age of 21 yeares"

In about 1644 the widow married Captain Richard Tye and in 1655 Thomas chose his stepfather as his Guardian.

[Charles City County Court Orders, 1655-1658, Virginia Colonial Abstracts, Vol. III 

Ancestry.com (database on-line]]

In 1658 Joyce was again left a widow.

[Charles City County Court Orders, 1658-1661, Virginia Colonial Abstracts, Vol. III 

Ancestry.com (database on-line]]

There's a final mention of Joyce in court records in 1662 regarding a dispute over land, although it's not clear to me that she was still alive because she's referred to as "his late wife" in the abstract.**

[Charles City County Court Orders, 1661-1664, Virginia Colonial Abstracts, Vol. III 

Ancestry.com (database on-line]]

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I'm still trying to figure out when Joyce (?) Boyce Tye died. Her great granddaughter Elizabeth Scott married Samuel Chappell and their great great granddaughter Martha Heath Hardy married Jesse T.S. Warren in 1849 in Macon County, Alabama.

*History gives us choice of ways to spell his surname: Boyse, Boyce, Boys, Bois.
**Also note that the court record is confused about dates too. So far I haven't discovered what the court's decision in the case was, although from other records I think it's probable that Captain Tye's "Orphands" prevailed.

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