Who was Samuel Sicklemore's Wife?

  The surname of Sutton Sicklemore's mother has always been a big mystery.  We know she first shows up in a deed as Samuel Sicklemore's wife in 1694.  But there are no wedding records or wills, etc that show who she was.
  But....
   Samuel Sicklemore owned many tracts of land in Baltimore Co.  One of them bore the name of Sicklemore's Dock.  In 1702, there is a deed selling Sicklemore's Dock to Robert Gudgeon/Cutchin.  The deed is signed by Samuel and Sarah signs by mark.
    Amazingly, Robert Cutchin turns around and sells the land right back to Samuel in the same year.  From there, the land is gifted to Samuel's daughter in 1711 (Her name was Hannah. As a sister of Sutton Sicklemore, it would seem obvious that Sutton's daughter, Hannah Sicklemore Ward, was named after her).  She, in turn sells it to William Demmitt in 1714.  And, by 1727, Demmitt has sold it to Nicholas Day. 
   What happens next is what only genealogists love--a land dispute.

   In June, 1728, Nicholas Day files a petition about the boundary of his newly acquired Sicklemore's Dock. 
    A book put out by the Baltimore Co Genealogical Society: Abstracts of the Baltimore County Land Commissions, 1727-1762, gives us the following summary:

 Deposition of John Fuller, 1 October 1728, age about 40: (St John's Parish) About 27 years ago Robert Cutchin told him about the boundary.
  Depostion of Thomas Cutchin, 1 October 1728, age about 51: His brother-in-law Samuel Sicklemore told him about the boundary.

   That leaves us with several possibilities:

   1)  Thomas Cutchin married Jane Hicks in Oct, 1713.  By this time Samuel Sicklemore was already gone from the county.  Some say he was dead by then, but we'll deal with that one another time.  In any case, the idea that Samuel was married to a sister of Jane Hicks is highly unlikely, since Samuel was almost as old as her father.
   2)   In that era, the term "brother-in-law" sometimes also meant what we now call a 'step-brother.'  The Gudgeons/Cutchins are very well researched.  And, even though, there is no record of a sister named Sarah, it's highly unlikely that Thomas Gudgeon's mother had previously married a Sicklemore.
   For one thing, as you will see in a later post, there just weren't many Sicklemores running around in England--it's a VERY rare name.  For another, the Gudgeons/Cutchins have been traced to Northamptonshire in the UK....while it's quite clear that the Sicklemores came from the area around Ipswich. 
  While nothing is impossible in genealogy I most certainly have found--the odds of this possibility being true are incredibly remote at best.
   3)  The simple explanation: Given all the involvement in documents between the Sicklemores and Gudgeons/Cutchins, coupled with Thomas Cutchin's statement that Samuel Sicklemore was his brother-in-law, it would seem to be pretty clear that Sarah Sicklemore was almost certainly a Cutchin.  Although some like to think so, there is never a 100% certainty in genealogy--especially not when going back this far.  In my experience, this is about as good as it gets. So we are concluding that, even though there is no other record of her:

   Samuel Sicklemore was married to Sarah Gudgeon/Cutchin.

   For those with an interest in further pursuing this line, I recommend this link to an excellent website about the Gudgeon/Cutchin family.
                                                                                  (Kevin)