Deborah FREEMAN

Other Events and Attributes:

• Fact: Daughter of Edmund Freeman and Keziah Presbury

Deborah married Zachariah PADDOCK on 7 Nov 1744. Zachariah (son of Zachariah PADDOCK and Elizabeth HOWES) was born on 17 Feb 1719/20 in Yarmouth, Massachusetts; was christened on 19 May 1728; died after 1800 in Southeast, Putnam Co., New York. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Ruth PADDOCK was born on 8 Aug 1745 in Mansfield, Connecticut; died in 1813.

Edmond/Edmund married Keziah PRESBURY OR SKIFFE before 20 Aug 1708. Keziah (daughter of ? UNKNOWN and Deborah SKIFFE) was born about 1687; died on 20 Apr 1764 in Mansfield, Bristol Co., Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Name:
The various theories proposed to explain either who Keziah, wife of Edmund Freeman (b. 1683), was or why she named a son Skeffe all fall apart upon examination, except one: Robert Wakefield's proposal that she was the same Keziah who was Stephen Skeffe's granddaughter, born out of wedlock to Stephen's daughter Deborah, later the wife of Stephen Presbury. It is the only explanation which satisfies all the evidence - the names, dates, and geographical location all align.

Edmund Freeman's wife Keziah's maiden surname of Presbury (published in 1858 and derived from older relatives that knew relatives living in Keziah's lifetime) was the married surname of Deborah (Skiffe) Presbury, Keziah's proposed mother. Mrs. Keziah Freeman herself could not have been any clearer about her ancestry with her choise of names for her children: Lydia,Stephen,Deborah, Skeffe, and Abigail.

There was no Sarah Skeffe to marry into the Freeman family behind the ancestry of Edmund Freeman (born 1683), and thus Dkeffe as a given name could only have come into the Freeman family via Keziah. Keziah doesn't fit anywhere into a Presbury family. She is not in the will of Stephen Presbury, who clearly identified his offspring, so she is not his daughter.

As Keziah was the daughter of Deborah, then it is not unreasonable that she was known (or remembered) by her mother's married name. Keziah in Stephen Skeffe's will is not given a surname, but it might well have been common knowledge that she was Deborah's daughter. The earliest source of Keziah's surname being Presbury dates from 1858, almost certainly derived from Keziah's granddaughter Agibail (Freeman) Hovey passed to her son-in-law Daniel Moulton. Abigail may have also assumed her grandmother's maiden name was Presbury, as this was the surname of Keziah's young (half) siblings. Keziah may have been born "Keziah Skiffe" (or even had the surname of her natural father), but given her mother's marriage to Stephen Presbury, and Keziah's younger Presbury siblings, later generations may have remembered her surname to match those of her immediate family.

Keziah, the wife of Edmund Freeman, must be the daughter of Deborah (Skeffe) Presbury and an unknown father, and the granddaughter of Stephen and Lydia (Snow) Skeffe, and thus a "Mayflower" descendant of Richard Warren.