Frances Albright1,2

#7484, (say 1600 - circa March 1678)
Father*Richard Albright3 (s 1565 - c 1613/14)
Mother*____ _____4 (s 1572 - c 1623/24)

Family 1

Thomas Wells b. s 1598, d. a 1637
Children 1.Thomas Wells+ (c 1620 - 1676)
 2.Mary Wells2 (1626 - 1700)
 3.John Wells+2 (s 1635 - 1692)

Family 2

Thomas Coleman d. 1674
Child 1.Deborah Coleman10 (s 1640 - 1703)
Is the only child for whom the baptism record is not found. Her older siblings were baptized at Welford-on-Avon, the younger at Alcester.5 
TAG 28, "Widow Frances Wells and Hugh Wells of Wethersfield," argues (convincingly) that there is no evidence "that the alleged Hugh Sr. was husband of the Widow Frances Wells; or that the said Frances was mother of Ensign Hugh Wells." This contradicts much of the widely used history. This theory was all but proved in The Widow Frances (Albright) Wells in NEHGR 146:28-34 (1992). Still, the birth and marriage records have not been found.6 
Her married name was Wells.2 
Her married name was Coleman.7 
"To date, neither the marriage of Thomas and Frances Wells nor the
baptisms of their three known children have been located. At the time
of their marriage, they lived probably somewhere in the general vicinity
of Alcester, Warwickshire, where Frances's widowed mother was living.
Sometime before 1637, they moved to Evesham, in Worcestershire,
where Thomas was a weaver."8 
Birth*say 1600She was born say 1600 at EnglandG. 
Marriage*circa 1625She married Thomas Wells, son of ____ Wells and ____ _____, circa 1625 at EnglandG.1,2 
Marriage*before 6 March 1638She married Thomas Coleman before 6 March 1638.9,7,10 
1639She and Thomas Coleman migrated to New EnglandG, "settling first in Wethersfield, Connecticut" in 1639.11 
1660She and Thomas Coleman removed in 1660.12,13 
Death*circa March 1678She died circa March 1678 at Hadley, Massachusetts.14 

Citations

  1. [S1256] Douglas Richardson, "The Widow Frances (Albright) Wells, Wife of Thomas Coleman of Wethersfield and Hadley", New England Historical and Genealogical Register 146 (1992): p. 31.
  2. [S738] James M. Crafts, History of the Town of Whately, Mass. 1661-1899 (Whately, MA: Town of Whately, 1899), pp. 612 ff, entry for Wells. Hereinafter cited as History of Whately (Crafts).
  3. [S1256] Douglas Richardson, "Widow Frances (Albright) Wells", p. 30-31.
  4. [S1256] Douglas Richardson, "Widow Frances (Albright) Wells", p. 30-31, Richard " married about 1592 to a woman whose name has not been learned."
  5. [S1256] Douglas Richardson, "Widow Frances (Albright) Wells", p. 31. "References to the parish registers are from Fl-IL microfilm (Welford-on-Avon, 1,067,558; Alcester, 557,289)."
  6. [S1254] Donald Lines Jacobus and W. Herbert Wood, "Widow Frances Wells and Hugh Wells of Wethersfield", The American Genealogist Vol. 28 (1952): 232, "In 1890 George Sheldon, who a little later published a History of Deerfield, Mass., contributed to the New England Hist. and Gen. Register (44:208) a note on the family of Frances Wells. In this he states that there was a "Hugh Wells, who came from co. Essex, Eng., about 1635, with wife Frances and at least four chi1dren,- Thomas, Hugh, Mary and John. He settled in Wethersfield, where he died about 1645. Wid. Frances became second wife of Thomas Coleman. They removed to Hadley with her sons Thomas and John in 1660." As we have seen, John did not remove to Hadley with his mother; Mr. Sheldon did not, apparently, know of his Stratford sojourn and lists his wife merely as a Sarah. He then adds some data of value on the children of Thomas, and omits the youngest (fourteenth) child, Joshua, whose date of birth is given in some accounts. The statement that the first husband of Frances was named Hugh, that he died early in Wethersfield, and that the known documented Hugh of Wethersfield was the second of the name and a third son of Frances, has found wide acceptance and has been enlarged on in various books printed since 1890. Stiles, in the genealogies in his History Wethersfield (2:780), repeats the entire tale, adding to it that the first Hugh "prob. came to New Eng. in the Globe, 1635; was of Htfd.,
    1636, and appears in Weth. abt. 1645, where he is supposed to have d. abt. the same time." With so much detail, later writers have accepted these statements as having substance; among the many, be it confessed, one of the present writers (Jacobus, Families of Old Fairfield, 1:127, 659).
  7. [S165] James Savage, A Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England, four volumes (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1860-1862), I:431.
  8. [S1256] Douglas Richardson, "Widow Frances (Albright) Wells", p. 33.
  9. [S1256] Douglas Richardson, "Widow Frances (Albright) Wells", p. 33-34, " before 6 March 1638, when it was noted in the inventory of Frances’s brother Richard Albright that his estate owed the sum of £3 10s 'to Thomas Coalemans Children.' The children in question were doubtless Coleman's Wells stepchildren."
  10. [S1254] Donald Lines Jacobus and W. Herbert Wood, "Widow Frances Wells", 227, "Thomas Coleman... married second, perhaps as early as 1645, a widow, Frances Wells, by whom he had a daughter Deborah."
  11. [S1256] Douglas Richardson, "Widow Frances (Albright) Wells", p. 34.
  12. [S328] Henry R. Stiles, editor, History of Ancient Wethersfield Connecticut, Vol. I (New York: The Grafton Press, 1904), p. 163. Hereinafter cited as Ancient Wethersfield I.
  13. [S290] Sylvester Judd and Lucius Boltwood, History of Hadley, including the Early History of Hatfield, South Hadley, Amherst and Granby Masssachusetts (Springfield, Mass.: H.R. Hunting and Company, 1905), p.11 ff.
  14. [S1254] Donald Lines Jacobus and W. Herbert Wood, "Widow Frances Wells", 227-235.