Tracing people who immigrated to North American almost 400 years ago is tricky. So I can only say with confidence that Stephen, our immigrant ancestor, was born likely between 1599 and 1603, most likely 1602, if I had to place a bet, and likely born in or near Great Ellingham, Norfolk, England. His parents are given as Dann and Margaret (possibly Williams) Payne, unless his father is Thomas, or maybe Thomas Daniel, or...you see the difficulties here. Plus, there are numerous spellings of Pain/Paine/Payne to work through. So I'm not totally confident until we see him arriving in 1638 on the ship Diligent, along with his wife, recently identified as Neele Adcock, and four children. Except, we don't know that all four children arrived. It's possible that one or two did not arrive in America, or perished so soon after arrival that there are no records for them.
Stephen and Neele, the daughter of John and Elizabeth Eldred Adcocke, were married probably by 1627, when their first son, John, was born. Or maybe John was not born until 1633. John died in September of 1638, at Hingham, Massachusetts, where his parents had first settled. He was no more than 11 years old at the time of his death.
Their next child, or possibly their first child, was Stephen, born in 1629. He died in 1678 in Rehoboth, Massachusetts. He married Ann Chickering, the daughter of Francis and Anne Fiske Chickering. Their children are Stephen, Rebecca, John, Mary, Samuel, Elizabeth, Sarah, Nathaniel, and Benjamin. I will write more of this family in my next post.
Next was Nathaniel, born in 1631 and died in 1678 in Boston, Massachusetts. He married Elizabeth, not yet further identified, and they had at least one child, Nathaniel. Unlike his brother Stephen, Nathaniel seems to have not left much of a paper trail and this is as much as I can relate about Nathaniel.
Finally, there is Rebecca, a daughter born in 1637 who is thought to have died on the voyage to America. What sadness there would have been on that ship!
Stephen was apparently somewhat well to do, as he brought four servants, not yet identified, to Massachusetts with him. After Neele died in 1660, Stephen married Alice Parker, a widow. His will mentions wife Elizabeth, which some genealogists think is Alice, but my mind is not made up on that yet. Might he have had a third wife named Elizabeth? His estate was valued at 535 pounds so he did have assets, which I haven't yet traced. It looks like Stephen and possibly Nathaniel had preceded him in death, although all three died within months of each other.
This once again is a short post, with lots of questions and not many answers. There is more to be learned of our immigrant ancestors, and I hope additional information is still out there, somewhere.
