Re: Thomas Ivy, d. 1684 Surry Co., VA
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Thomas Ivy, d. 1684 Surry Co., VA
John Jones 1/15/04
I took a pass at identifying her a few years ago for a paper I was writing on her father Thomas Vicesimus Ivey. (The paper is one of several on the Ivey page at www.genfiles.com)
I could find only two references to her.She was almost certainly the goddaughter "Kate" Ivey named in the 1663 will of John Sidney, who was apparently Thomas V. Ivey's brother-in-law.Judging from the apparent ages of the other children, Katherine was probably a relatively young child at the time.A further clue to her age lies in Thomas Ivey's 1665 patent, in which his wife Alice and daughter Mary Ivey are claimed as headrights, but not Kate.This implies, but does not prove, that Kate may have been born subsequent to his arrival in Virginia.We do not know exactly when Thomas V. Ivey immigrated, but he is first mentioned as a surgeon in a court record in December 1660.Most of the children appear to have been born after that date.In fact, we know his wife Alice bore a child as late as c1685, implying that she was unlikely to have had her first child earlier than the late 1650s.
So our best guess is that Kate was likely born in the period 1659-1663.Nearly all women at that time would have married in their mid or late teens, so she could have married almost any time in the period 1675-1684.
She is mentioned the second time in Thomas V. Ivey's will of 21 September 1684 as "Katherine Taylor".
It is possible that she was previously married to Morris Fitzgerald, who married a widow named Katherine Howard by 1670, and who died in 1678/9 leaving a widow Katherine and two minor sons (only one of whom was Katherine's).A later court case mentions that Thomas Ivey Jr. was a maternal uncle of Morris Fitzgerald's son Morris Jr.That is, that Morris Fitzgerald was married to a daughter of Thomas V. Ivey.Further evidence is that Alice Ivey, widow of Thomas V. Ivey, names Morris Fitzgerald as her grandson in her own 1708 will.All this strongly implies that Katherine Fitzgerald was the same person as Katherine Ivey.Since we know Katherine Fitzgerald was the childless widow of Roger Howard in 1670, this would make her a few years older than the above argument suggests.
Bottom line:Katherine Ivey may have married Roger Howard in the late 1660s, been widowed before having children, remarried Morris Fizgerald by 1670 and had at least one son before being widowed again in 1679.That gave her four years to marry for a third time to a Taylor in time to be Katherine Taylor in her father's will.
This could be cleared up by a careful search of the court records for evidence that Morris Fizgerald Jr. was living with some Taylor family in the 1680s.I think that approach is your best bet to prove that her third husband was Thomas Taylor.
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Re: Thomas Ivy, d. 1684 Surry Co., VA
John Jones 1/24/04