Patty -

The information on the Kerleys from 1645 to mid 1700's has gotten so garbled that even NEHGS could not unravel it. I have been having a running battle with someone who is copying her family to the Digests and Lists of rootsweb.com and who has put a lot of seriously wrong information into those publications -- I have finally gotten her to recently update her information but she had been insisting that since her incorrect information had been in print for over 100 years, that she would never acknowledge any of the new stuff that I was sending her, despite the fact that I had citings to back up my new info. It has been extremely frustrating!!!

For example - in one part of the book on Marlborough, William Kerley Jr son of William and Ann White Kerly and brother of Capt. Henry - is listed as having been married to a Jane (Unknown) who is supposed to have died and that William then remarried Hannah King. William Jr is buried in Lexington with his wife Jane. Their markers state that he was born in 1633 and died in 1719 and that she was born in 1649 and died in 1721. Their years of birth are arrived at by the ages at the time of their death as stated on their markers. So, William could not have been married to Hannah King - ever!!!.

Another section of the book noting Capt. Henry, has used the date of birth of his son Henry, Jr. who was supposedly killed during the massacre of 1676 and then goes on to marry him to his step-mother, Elizabeth Ward Howe who was several years older than Henry, Jr. It seems that no one else has been paying attention and charting all the old information.

I have the Rowlandson account of the massacre at Lancaster in 1676 - the only son she verifies as having died with her sister Elizabeth Kerley is William, who fell by his mother's side inside the garrison house. - I would like to see the Cutter information and if it is on line, could you please send me the citation address? But, I have a lot of doubt as to the accuracy sight unseen because of so much garbage that has been accepted as gospel over so many years.

Also , another interesting note is that neither Henry, b 1632, William Jr. b 1633, or the William, b 1619/20, who married Hannah King (and who I suspect was a nephew of William Sr. and who was the one who arrived on the Confidence with the Edmond who disappeared) mentioned ANY sons in their Wills. William Jr. mentions a grandson - but, he does not mention even one of the children of the line I believe follows Capt Henry and his second wife Elizabeth Ward Howe, although their ages would have been fairly concurrent with those of the William, b 1680-4 that I believe to have been one of their sons, and from whom my line springs. (ie Albert and Johnathan, etc. born in Wilton, Fairfield, CT in 1749 through 1750's, just two of the children of Abraham and Susannah Unknown [possibly Jackson or Blackman]) who married Thaddeus Gray, a cousin of Abraham's, after Abraham's death in 1758.) Henry does mention daughters and sons-in-law and in later court documents, his son-in-law challenge Henry's mental competence, but that carries no direct bearing on the lines of inheiritance outlined in his Will.

I know you really need to have a huge wall chart in order to even begin to understand all of this - I am trying to get as much of this info out to the Kerly/Kerley/Carley/Kearley, etc families as possible, but it is like bouncing off the brick walls, so to speak.

Thanks for hanging in there with me through all of this - hope you can make some sense out of it.

Judy