This month’s deep dive isn’t going to be nearly as extensive as my recent Woodruff and Estermann adventures since my focus will be on finding primary records to document the life of the family of Thomas Brasher and Sarah, whose maiden name itself appears in several forms, from Baltimore County, Maryland to Orange County, North Carolina in the 1700s.

Today’s research topic touches on Sarah before we really delve into the family life of this couple.

What is Sarah’s maiden name?

This seems like a very straightforward question with a simple answer because Thomas’s and Sarah’s marriage on 13 October 1726 was recorded in St. George’s Parish church register in Baltimore County, Maryland. The original books are still in existence and housed at the Maryland State Archives.

In spite of that, no parents have ever been proven for Sarah AND I’ve seen her maiden name displayed online as both CONSTANT and CONSTANCE plus someone questioning whether Constance might be a corruption of Custice/Custis.

I couldn’t find digital access to the St. George parish records so I used the online contact form to reach out to the Maryland State Archives.

I had a response within a couple of hours even though I messaged on a Monday when the archives isn’t open to the public.

A link was provided for me to download a (very large) PDF file with digitized images of St. George’s Parish church records. Although I downloaded and saved the file, browsing the images is a rather unwieldy experience. Because of its size, the file is very, very slow (4-5 minutes) to open and good luck if you want to quickly skim the pages.

However, when I wrote back to the archives to question how to get through the PDF (Some pages, including the indexes are very faded and have edges cut off the left side), an archivist apparently felt sorry for me and told me that the record I was seeking was on page 174 of the PDF. Thank you, Mr. or Ms. Archivist! That saved me several hours of work.

Here is the entry for Thomas and Sarah Brasher’s marriage and the births of three of their children:

Octobr ye 13th 1726 Then was Thomas Brashier marrd to Sarah Constance

Below are the births of William, Elizabeth (plus her death) and Thomas, “Children of Thomas Brashier & Sarah his Wife.”

Let’s look closely at Sarah’s name – the handwriting is clear and her name is clearly recorded as CONSTANCE.

There is a problem, though, because while this is a page from the original St. George Parish records, it’s not an original record for their marriage or, for that matter, of the births/death of these three children except possibly if the entry was made at the time of baby Thomas’s birth on 10 June 1731.

Add to that the fact that the Constance/Constan surname is extremely rare in these records. In fact, I have found only one other family entry for the name:

This entry, with its faded ink, is much harder to read.

Margaret Constant (with CE overwritten) was Born March ye 30th -1722
Susannah Constant (with CE overwritten) was Born May ye 3rd- 1724
John Constant Born August the 14- 1725
William Constant (squiggle of some sort at the end) was Born May ye 23 -1727

On the side is the description:
Children of John Constant & Susannah his Wife

In this entry, no maiden name is given for Susannah, nor is a marriage date mentioned.

If John and Sarah are related, and with an uncommon surname like Constant or Constance they likely are, my guess is that they are siblings.

I can now see why some state that Sarah’s name is Constance, while others say Constant.

I can now understand, too, why – without access to the original (really secondary) entries – someone might ask if the surname was really Custice.

From these two entries, I am at a loss to decide which version of the name is accurate. That’s because in the Constant/ce entry, Margaret’s name looks like the T at the end is lighter ink than the CE over written on it. However, Susannah’s birth entry looks like the T is darker than the CE.

Furthermore, John’s (the father) surname on the right side is clearly CONSTANT.

Are there any other records to examine?

My next step was to search for more information about John Constant, father of the above Constant/Constance family. I suspiciously viewed the claim that John was really Jean, a Frenchman, but married his English wife in Picardy, France in 1721.

Here’s a 2023 note added to John Constant on the FamilySearch family tree:

Here is a distant Brasher cousin, who has worked on the family tree. What mostly caught my attention in this note is the statement that John’s marriage to Susannah “is there,” as in the St. George Parish records.

However, when I look at the source attached for this “fact,” it is only a link to the record of their children’s births:

Nothing is said about Susannah’s maiden name! Notice, too, that the record set is purportedly St. John’s and St. George’s Parish vestry records, but look closely at the dates – beginning in 1735, even though all of the events took place in the 1720s. More cause for viewing with some skepticism.

What next?

I am just beginning to poke around to see what else I can find on any Constant/Constance families, particularly in the South. I tried FamiySearch full-text search and found one John Constant, whose estate inventory was filed in Bourbon County, Kentucky in 1789.

I looked at the 1790 census and there were a handful of Constant families. “John Constand” and Richard Constant were both in Patapsco Lower Hundred, Baltimore county, Maryland. Even more interesting were Edward Constant in Rutherford County, North Carolina and William Constant in Randolph County, North Carolina.

The Brasher family went to Orange County, North Carolina, where Thomas died in the 1770s. At that time, Orange County was much larger in area. In 1771, Guilford County was set off from part of it and then, in 1779, Randolph County was set off from part of Guilford. That means that Randolph County was part of Orange County at the time Thomas Brasher lived there!

As for CONSTANCE families, there isn’t a single one to be found in the 1790 census nor in the 1800 census – anywhere.

From this first attempt at clarifying the maiden name of Sarah, wife of Thomas Brasher, my theory, at the moment, is that she was, indeed, Sarah CONSTANT.

I also believe, currently, that she is most likely related to John Constant. I’ve seen hints that some believe she is a daughter of John Constant by a previous wife. That is certainly a possibility. However, it’s also possible that they are siblings, close in age. Perhaps their father died when they were very young and their mother remarried so there are no others in Maryland with their surname. Also, because the St. George parish records begin in 1681 and I’ve found no marriage record for John Constant, it makes me think they came from elsewhere – another colony or perhaps were newly arrived immigrants in the early 1700s.

For the time being, I am regarding her as Sarah Constant.