Ancestry of Ethel Blanch Miles - Urs Boxler Photography

Ancestry of Ethel B. Miles
Descendants of NICHOLAS Ide
Generation No. 1
1. NICHOLAS 1 IDE died Bef. November 03, 1676 in Rehoboth, Bristol, Mass, USA. He married
MARTHA // 1,2,3 , daughter of THOMAS BLISS. She died in Rehoboth, Bristol, Mass, USA.
More About NICHOLAS IDE:
Burial: November 03, 1676, Rehoboth, Bristol, Mass, USA 4,5
Residence: 1643, Rehoboth, Bristol, Mass, USA 6
Notes for MARTHA //:
Despite at least one published correction, it is still widely believed that THOMAS BLISS of Braintree
and Rehoboth, Mass., had a daughter MARTHA and that she married NICHOLAS IDE. Neither is true.
That a marriage between Nicholas Ide and Martha Bliss occurred at Springfield in 1647 is a fabrication
and a confused one at that. There were two, contemporary Thomas Blisses, one of Rehoboth (d. there
between 7 Oct. 1647 [will] and 21 Oct. 1647 [estate inventory]), the other of Hartford, Conn. (d. there
shortly before 14 Feb. 1650/1; his wife was Margaret Hulins [TAG 52(1976): 193-97, 60(1984): 202]).
At least one of Hartford Thomas's children was living at Springfield by 1646, and others followed.
Thomas of Rehoboth and his children, on the other hand, never resided at Springfield. NO
DAUGHTER MARTHA IS RECORDED FOR EITHER MAN. (Two of the more reliable secondary
sources pertaining to these men and their families are Donald L. Jacobus and Edgar R. Waterman,
HALE, HOUSE AND RELATED FAMILIES [1952], pp. 476-80, and Aaron T. Bliss, GENEALOGY OF
THE BLISS FAMILY IN AMERICA, 3 vols. [1982] [hereinafter BLISS FAMILY], 1:27-37.) While a
baptismal date of 8 December 1622 is often attributed to Martha, supposed daughter of Rehoboth
Thomas Bliss, it was his son Nathaniel who was baptized at Daventry, Northamptonshire, England, on
that date (BLISS FAMILY, 1:36).
The reference in Thomas Bliss's will to "my sonninlaw Nicolas Ide," seems to indicate that Ide had
married Bliss's daughter. This, however, is not the case. With his first wife, Dorothy Wheatlie, Bliss had
seven known children (baptized 1615-1626), of whom none was named Martha (BLISS FAMILY, 1:36).
Bliss's will, dated "the seventh day of the eighth month [October] 1647," names only three of these
seven; it nevertheless speaks of "my fouer Children" (Plymouth Colony Wills, 1:67 [will], 68 [inventory,
dated "the 21 of the eighth month (Oct.) 1647"]). The will refers to Bliss's surviving daughters'
husbands in association with their respective wives: "my eldest Daughter [Elizabeth] and her husband
Thomas Willmore [i.e., Wilmarth]" and "my Daughter Mary and her husband Nathaneell harmon."
"[S]onninlaw" Nicholas Ide, by contrast, is mentioned only in relation to Ide's son "Nathaneell." While
these facts are significant in their own right, they become all the more so when it is understood that the
term SON-IN-LAW was commonly used at this time to mean STEPSON.
The conclusion is inescapable: Nicholas Ide, by virtue of his widowed mother's having become
Thomas Bliss's second wife, was Bliss's stepson and NOT the husband of a Bliss daughter. That Ide
was the fourth of Bliss's "fouer Children" is confirmed by the petition of "Nicolas Hyde" to the Plymouth
Colony General Court, 7 June 1648, "for a childs portion of the estat[e] of Thomas Blisse, desseased"
(Nathaniel B. Shurtleff and David Pulsifer, eds., RECORDS OF THE COLONY OF NEW PLYMOUTH
IN NEW ENGLAND [1620-1691], 12 vols. in 10 [Boston, 1855-61], 2:126 [microfiche 2/2, FHL set
#6046866]). Die-hards who might argue that Nicholas could have married his stepsister should recall
that there is no record of Thomas Bliss's having had a daughter Martha. New England colonists,
moreover, would have considered such a marriage as bordering on incest.
Nicholas Ide's wife Martha's maiden name is unknown.
Register Report of NICHOLAS Ide: 155