Women In My Family History: Part 7

Jane Sherburne Southward

Born after 1575 

Death date unknown

Jane Sherburne married John Southward in 1598.  The couple lived in Samlesbury Lower Hall (the picture above is Samlesbury Hall and I assume the lower hall was at a nearby location) which is located in Lancaster England.  They had seven children and John died in the spring of 1612.  From 1550 to 1650 was a time of great religious conflict in England between the Catholics and the Protestants.  The Southward family were staunch Catholics and when John and Jane broke away and joined the Protestant church it caused a major family split.  On August 19, 1612, four months after John's death,  charges were brought against Jane and two other women by a young girl who made outlandish claims.  It was later discovered that she was put up to telling the stories by a priest who was a member of the Southward family.  More information can be found HERE and HERE about the events leading up to the trial and the trial itself.  The three accused women were found not guilty and I have not been able to discover much else about the remainder of Jane's life.  Jane is not actually a direct ancestor of mine.  She was married to the brother of my direct ancestor.  I am descended from John's brother Thomas who had a son named Thomas.  This second Thomas had among his children a son named Isaac who had a son named Abraham.  Abraham had a daughter named Elizabeth Jane who married a man named William Patton.  They named one of their sons Isaac Southard Patton who married a woman named Elizabeth Sheafor.  Their son was Vincent and Vincent had a son named Samuel.  Samuel had a daughter named Clara Barton Patton who married LeRoy Shepler.  Their daughter Georgia married William Harvey Rairigh and were the parents of my mother's father.  I chose to honor Jane with this issue of the my blog series because her story brings forth how vulnerable women used to be as widows.  While she was safe in her and her husband's religious choices during his lifetime, once he was gone she was attacked in vengeance.   Please be sure and follow the links located in the text of this blog for more details on Jane's trial and enjoy the short video  at the link that follows about the religious conflicts of that time period.  The video may be found HERE.