Could "cousin" Sarah Bishop, named in the will of Thomas Bishop be Sarah Bishop, daughter of James Bishop-184?

Question

Donald Lines Jacobus, in Families of Ancient New Haven, Vol 1, page 201, indicates that Thomas Bishop-263 of Ipswich, Massachusetts is "perhaps" the brother of James Bishop-184. The will of Thomas Bishop refers to his unmarried "cousin Sarah Bishop" who lived with him at the time he died in 1670/1, and it is speculated that Sarah was probably actually his niece. Nathaniel Bishop-5033 of Boston, a known brother of James Bishop, also had a daughter Sarah, but she married Samuel Bucknell in 1654. If Sarah Bishop-2537, daughter of James Bishop-184, was the niece of Thomas Bishop, that would mean that Thomas and James were brothers. Sarah was born in 1655, and would have been 16 years old in 1670/1 when Thomas died. Would it have been reasonable that she had been sent to Ipswich to live with her uncle?

Answer 1

The term cousin, during the time frame, frequently means niece. So given Thomas' will that would be a very good reason why Jacobus speculated that Thomas was perhaps the brother of James. Given James' better than average position in the community, I think it would be reasonable for him to send his daughter Sarah to Massachusetts, to stay with her uncle. James had a plethora of daughters. Thomas had none.  But, like Jacobus, the suggestion is there, but it doesn't quite prove the relationship.

Comments

All would be reasonable, however we are speaking. In linear terms of 1670, and Sarah Bishop being 15, at that time to 184? Ish? The life span indicates their has to be an additional Sarah.

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Melissa, James Bishop-184 is her father's Wiki ID. What life span are you referring to?

Answer 2

It's entirely likely that an orphaned Boston minor child would go to a relative in Ipswich.  There was a great deal of movement up and down the coast at the time, so much so that it's often difficult to untangle various migrating families.  Sailing was far easier than over-land travel, and Boston and Ipswich are both coastal cities.

Now I'm wondering if there's a probate record for James, since Thomas would presumably have been appointed her guardian.

Edit:  I see she was actually from New Haven.  This is also a New England coastal shipping city, and yes, her being sent to Ipswich is also quite likely.

Answer 3

Thomas also had a brother Job.  Job had a daughter Sarah born in Ipswich on15 May 1659 according to the Ipswich vital records.  Sarah married Henry Seager and named her first child Job.

Answer 4

I have noticed some other complicating factors to this frustrating ambiguity about the Bishops of the Great Pilgrim Migration... 
 
1. Thomas Bishop-263 arrived in Boston 1634, the same time & place as James Bishop-184 (my 9x ggf) and his known brothers Henry and Nathaniel. 9-year-old James and big brother Henry headed to the nascent New Haven Colony with John Davenport while possible-brother Thomas, stayed in Boston. Henry became Davenport's farmer; James was given the lot between Theophilus Eaton and John Davenport by Gov Eaton to became Secretary, Magistrate and Lieut. Governor of the colony. 
2. My well educated James & brothers are, in the oldest references, repeatedly reported to have come from Kingston, Surrey; Thomas left, in his will, a "hogshead" of tobacco to his brother in Kingston. 
3. Thomas Bishop-263 married Margaret Lewin/Lewen (according to several old books); James Bishop-184 married Mary Lewin (my 9x ggm), who has a good possibility (IMHO) of being shown to be Margaret's sister! These Lewins, according to statements in olde books, are also from Kingston. This possibility of Bishop brothers marrying Lewin sisters from the same hometown is just too coincidental to dismiss (IMHO) and likely must have left more of a paper (and y-DNA) trail than is apparent. 

 
I dredge up this old conundrum because I hope that now may be a good time to sort out some the Bishops of the Great Pilgrim Migration. I envision a relatively big project for a dedicated group of amateurs and experts that could substantially change the historical record (and determine the paternity of my 9x ggf in the process; I've noticed that hundreds of Ancestry and other trees need to be informed of the true paternity of James Bishop-184 because unsupported claims abound, supported by Ira Elmore Bishop's books). 

I have my Big-Y 700 results and a solid genealogical trail back to James Bishop-184 (and I have my 2x great-grandfather Bishop's photo album with his great-grandfather in it). I noticed on FamilyTreeDNA that several other Bishop descendents from the GPM have tested and most are unrelated to my Bishop line (most are "R" (farm-herder) rather than my "I" (western hunter-gatherer) haplogroup; I suspect that some I-M223 Bishops may be found to be related to me upon their deeper testing); my I-Y6649+ must have migrated to England from Scotland some time after 450 AD). I am not aware of any descendents of Thomas Bishop-263 having been tested. 
 
I am very willing to participate, but lack the level of skills, knowledge and time to lead such a major project as collecting and resolving all known data regarding all known Bishop puritan migrators and putting it into a format that would shed light on these mysteries. I would dedicate much more of my meager time & resources to solving these riddles if I knew that at least one competent expert was also dedicated to an ongoing, consolidated project with clear goals.  
Success would mean assembling irrefutable data in a form that would force several revisions to Anderson's Pilgrim Migration series.

So...
Could resolving some of these early Bishop family ambiguities become the goal of an official WikiTree Project? How might I help to get this going with others more expert than I? I am 68 years old, and my older (10-time Grammy Award winner) brother, Michael, just fell off a ladder and died, so we'd better get this going soon.