Edward Fuller

BIRTH: 4 September 1575, Redenhall, Norfolk. (See notes in the Biographical Summary below).

MARRIAGE: * Married, but name of wife unknown.

Death: Sometime during the first winter at Plymouth..

Children: Matthew, Samuel

Edward Fuller has been generally identified as the son of Robert and Sara (Dunkhorn) Fuller, baptized on 4 September 1575 at Redenhall, Norfolk. However, a number of genealogical scholars and Mayflower researchers, including Robert S. Wakefield, Robert Sherman, Robert Leigh Ward, Robert C. Anderson, Eugene Stratton, Leslie Mahler, and others, have all questioned the identification over the past couple of decades. The current identification is based upon circumstantial evidence only: the fact that the names Samuel, Edward, and Ann occur within the same family; and the fact the father is identified as a butcher. Thomas Morton, writing in 1637, says that Samuel Fuller was the son of a butcher. The name Matthew also occurs in this Redenhall Fuller family. The counter-evidence is primarily that the ages for the Fullers appear to be too old, when compared to their marriage dates, the ages of their spouses, and with the births of their children.

The name of Edward Fuller's wife has not been discovered. In James Savage's Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England (1860-1862), Edward Fuller's wife was given as "Ann". However, there are no American or English records which give her name. I suspect James Savage may have made a simple typographical error: Mayflower passenger Edward Tilley had a wife Ann; or perhaps he was thinking of their sister Ann Fuller. None-the-less, numerous sources published after 1860 have utilized Savage's Genealogical Dictionary, and so the identification of Ann can be found in numerous other books and online resources.

So, in truth, very little is known about Edward Fuller. His English origins and the name of his wife are widely disputed. What is known is that he, his wife, and his son Samuel came on the Mayflower in 1620 to Plymouth. A single Leiden judicial document mentions Edward Fuller, and proves that he, like brother Samuel Fuller, were living in Leiden. Both Edward and his wife died the first winter, but son Samuel (who would have been about 12), survived. An older brother, Matthew, had stayed behind, and came to America later.

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