Please note: Through research I’ve seen her last name spelled Sims, Simms, Simes and Symmes. For simplicity, I’m going to go with the spelling in her epitaph.
Anything that I include in italics are just my thoughts, they are in no way verified, they are purely conjecture.
February 1694
Sarah’s father, James Norrice (or Norris in some records), is born in Salem to parents Edward and Mary. He was the fourth of six children.
1704
Sarah’s mother, Lydia, was born in Salem. I wasn’t able to find her parents as her records often mix up with her daughter from her first marriage, also named Lydia.
January 20, 1718
James marries his first wife, Joanna Field, in Salem. They had four children: Joanna (1719), Mary (1721), James (1724) and James (1725).
Note: If a child passed away in infancy or early childhood it wasn’t uncommon to name another child the same name.
Based on future children’s names, I believe both of his sons with Joanna died in infancy.
1720
Lydia and her first husband, Frances Begoe, are married in Salem.
December 31, 1727
Sarah’s half sister by her mother, Lydia, is baptized.
May 9, 1728
Sarah’s parents, James & Lydia, are married in Salem.
James’s first wife, Joanna, is noted as dying “about May 1728.” Frances, Lydia’s first husband, had died the previous year.
It was super common to get remarried quickly back then. Women remarried for security and men remarried to have someone to help with their kids. Lydia was a single mother to an infant and James was a single father to two young daughters.
November 29, 1730
Sarah is born in Salem. She has three older half sisters: Joanna (11) & Mary (9) from her father and Lydia Jr. (3) from her mother. She would go on to have three younger siblings as well: Elizabeth (1734), James (1737), and Henry (1739).
The exact date isn’t known, but her future husband Stephen Sims Jr. is born in Boston this year.
1747
Sarah’s father, James, passes away.
May 30, 1750
Sarah marries Stephen Sims in Boston. One family history notes that Stephen was a “leather breeches maker.”
Interesting fact: They are married by Revered Joseph Sewall. Joseph Sewall’s father was Samuel Sewall, a judge in the Salem Witch Trials.
October 2, 1750
Sarah’s mother, Lydia, remarries Benjamin Beckford in Salem.
May 4, 1755
Sarah and Stephen’s children, Stephen III & Elizabeth, are baptized.
This could mean one of two things: the children were twins or it wasn’t uncommon to baptize your children at one time back then.
July 1767
Sarah passes away at age 37. Records show her death as being on the 8th but her epitaph reads the 18th. I have seen epitaphs be wrong in the past (including Edgar Allan Poe’s), so this seems most likely.
1804
Lydia, Sarah’s mother, lived to be 100 years old. She outlived three husbands and all of her children.
Where to find Sarah
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