Master Surname Index




Elizabeth Smart

Ancestry of
Elizabeth Smart

Founder of Elizabeth Smart Foundation


    Mercy Rockwood

    View famous kin of Mercy Rockwood

    • 8th Great-grandmother of Elizabeth Smart — 11th Generation
    • Ahnentafel No:
    • 1925 
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    • Birth Date:
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    • Death Date:
    • 18 Dec 1700 
    • Death Location:
    • Mendon, Worcester, Massachusetts 
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    • Notes: 
    • One source has Mary/Mercy Rockwood whose parents are Josiah and Mary (Twitchell) Rockwood, while another has her as Mercy Rockwood whose father is John Rockwood of Mendon, Massachusetts. Other sources, including recent sources, list her as Mary/Mercy Ward.

      Gary Boyd Roberts's book, Ancestors of American Presidents (2009 ed.), lists both Rockwood and Ward depending on which chart in the book that you look at. Page 197 (Bush Genealogy) lists her as Mary (Ward?) while the charts on pages 495 and 545 both list her as Mercy Rockwood. In all cases they are the mother of Moses Thayer.

      The best solution to these discrepancies I have seen so far are in William Richard Cutter's "New England Families, Genealogical and Memorial, Vols. 1-4 (New York: 1915). In volume 1, page 332, he states that Isaac had two wives. The first was Mercy Rockwood, daughter of John Rockwood and granddaughter of Richard Rockwood. She died on 18 DEC 1700 and he then married Mary ------ in 1703. He states that the name Ward is incorrect. Under his version, Mercy Rockwood would not be the mother of Moses Thayer. Birth records of of the children of Isaac Thayer agree with their being two mothers, one name Mercy and the other named Mary. Mary is listed for all birth after the death of Mercy was recorded in 1700.

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  • Sources for Mercy Rockwood

    • 2 Thayer, Bezaleel, Memorial of the Thayer Name, From the Massachusetts Colony of Weymouth and Braintree, Embracing Genealogical and . . ., Oswego, New York: R. J. Oliphant, Steam Book and Job Printer (1874), 331-332.

Elizabeth Smart photo by KOMUnews (CC BY 2.0)