Roger Chandler

Roger Chandler was a Leiden resident and sayworker who married Isabel Chilton, daughter of James Chilton, in Leiden on 21 July 1615 (New Style). He was later associated with Plymouth and Duxbury, Massachusetts. The supplied notes place his death at Duxbury sometime after 5 May 1646 and no later than 3 October 1665, although the exact date remains uncertain.

Roger Chandler’s birth is uncertain. Although the supplied life-date field gives 4 April 1580, the family-tree notes estimate that he was born about 1590 from the date of his marriage and suggest, without confirmation, that he may have been born at Colchester, Essex.

On 21 July 1615, New Style, Roger married Isabel Chilton in Leiden, Holland. Isabel was a daughter of James Chilton. Roger was identified as a sayworker in Leiden. Family-tree notes say that he was probably related to Edmund Chandler, who was also a sayworker in Leiden; this proposed relationship is based on their shared occupation, their arrival in the Plymouth area at about the same time, and their later removal to Duxbury, but it is not established.

Roger and Isabel had children recorded in the supplied notes. Samuel and Sarah were born before 15 October 1622, the date of the Leiden census in which they were listed. Samuel was not found in later records cited by the notes. Sarah married Solomon Leonard, son, about 1640. Martha, probably born in the late 1620s, married John Bundy by 1649. Mary, also probably born in the late 1620s, married Edmund Bruff by 1653. The notes also refer to three additional daughters and their descendants in the Mayflower Society’s Five Generations Project volume for James Chilton, but do not name them.

Roger was associated with Duxbury, Massachusetts. A dispute with Kenelm Winslow on 5 May 1646 provides evidence that he was then living. The supplied notes place his death at Duxbury after that date and by 3 October 1665, when land was granted to his daughters. They further suggest that he may have died closer to 1646 than to 1665. Thus, the exact death date of 3 October 1665 given in the supplied life-date field should be treated cautiously; the notes describe it as the date of a land grant rather than a confirmed date of death.

Historical context

Leiden, Holland, was Roger Chandler’s known place of marriage in 1615 and the place where he worked as a sayworker. The supplied notes connect him with Plymouth and later Duxbury, Massachusetts, and identify Duxbury as the place of his later recorded activities and probable death.

Sources & research

Mayflower Families through Five Generations, vol. 15, James Chilton-Richard More, p. 5. Robert Moody, CG, FASG, and Verle Delano Vincent; revised by Robert S. Wakefield, FASG. General Society of Mayflower Descendants, 1997.

Robert Charles Anderson, The Pilgrim Migration: Immigrants to Plymouth Colony 1620-1633. Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2004, pp. 101-105, entries for Roger Chandler and James Chilton.

Lucy Mary Kellogg, F.A.S.G., Mayflower Families through Five Generations, Volume 2. General Society of Mayflower Descendants, Plymouth, Massachusetts, 1975. Chilton, More, Thomas Rogers.

Frederick Warner, The American Genealogist, 27:1-6.

Florence Barclay, The American Genealogist, 37:212-217.

Ancestry.com family trees.

Cary Family History. Rev. Darrell Joiner and Sallyann Joiner. This source gives Roger Chandler’s birth as 1582.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Chilton