General Notes

The population of Sudbury grew.  In 1656, Edmund was one of 13 petitioners from Sudbury for a new plantation.  They asked for a grant of land 8 miles square, 8 miles west of Sudbury. The General Court allowed them 6 miles square.  Edmund could be called one of the town fathers of Marlboro, Massachusetts.   In 1660, when the town was incorporated, Edmund Rice was one of the Selectmen.  The others were William Ward, John Ruddocke, John Howe, Thomas King, Solomon Johnson, and Thomas Goodnow.  (Afterward three of Thomas King's daughters married three of Edmund Rices's sons.)  (Our Colonial Lines, p. 60)

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from the Internet:
http://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=ctally&id=I0321

Twice in the 20th century nationally recognized research
genealogists have attempted to determine the parents and
ancestors of Edmund Rice. Mary Lovering Holman described the
negative result of her search for records in the parishes near
Stanstead and Sudbury, Suffolk Co. England in "English
Notes on Edmund Rice", The American Genealogist, Volume 10
(1933/34), pp. 133 - 137. Mrs Holman is considered by many to
be one of the best research genealogists in the 20th century.
In 1997 the Edmund Rice (1638) Association commissioned Dr.
Joanna Martin, a nationally recognized research genealogist who
lives in Hitcham, Suffolk, England, only a few miles from
Stanstead and Sudbury, to search again for records of Edmund
Rice's parents. Dr. Martin reported in 1999 that she found no
record that identified Edmund's parents or ancestral line.


Several authors of published works and computer data sets have
claimed names for Edmund Rice's parents. Regrettably they have
not given sources that would assist in definitive genealogical
research. For example, the Ancestral File and International
Genealogical Index, two popular computer data sets widely
distributed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints,
offer parent candidates that include: Henry Rice and Margaret
Baker, Henry Rice and Elizabeth Frost, Thomas Rice and
Catherine Howard, and Thomas Rice and Elizabeth Frost.

From Mrs. Holman's paper we have an excellent record of one
Henry Rice's marriage to Elizabeth Frost in November 1605 at
Stanstead. Mrs. Holman also documents the baptism of Edmund's
first child on 23 August 1619 at Stanstead. If this is the
Henry Rice and Elizabeth Frost to which the LDS records refer,
the LDS records must be erroneous. Our researchers have not
been able to find records that support any Henry Rice and
Elizabeth Frost, Henry Rice and Margaret Baker, Thomas Rice and
Catherine Howard, or Thomas Rice and Elizabeth Frost as parents
of Edmund Rice.

A scholarly investigation by Donald Lines Jacobus, considered
by many as the dean of modern American genealogy, appeared in
The American Genealogist, volume 11, (1936), pp. 14-21 and was
reprinted in the fall of 1968 and the winter of 1998 issues of
Newsletter of the Edmund Rice (1638) Association. Jacobus
traced many of the false accounts to the book by Dr. Charles
Elmer Rice entitled "By the Name of Rice", privately published
by Dr. Rice at Alliance, Ohio in 1911.

Sudbury, England includes three parishes, two of which do not
have complete records for the years near 1594, which is
Edmund's most likely birth year. Edmund Rice deposed in a court
document on 3 April 1656 that he was about 62 years old. Thus,
if he were born in Sudbury his records have been lost and we
may never know his origin.

In his address to the 1999 annual meeting of the Edmund Rice
(1638) Association, Gary Boyd Roberts, Senior Researcher, New
England Historic Genealogy Society, reviewed all of the
genealogical sleuthing on Edmund's parentage. Mr. Roberts is
well known for his research on royal lineage. He concluded that
there was no evidence whatsoever that supports the published
accounts of Edmund Rice's parents and no evidence that Edmund
Rice was from a royal lineage.

The Edmund Rice (1638) Association is very interested in
proving the ancestry of Edmund Rice. The association encourages
anyone who can identify a primary source that names Edmund and
his parents to identify that source. Records of a baptism,
estate probate, or land transaction naming Edmund and his
parents are the most likely records to contain that proof.
Until someone can cite such a record, the association must
state emphatically that Edmund Rice's parents and ancestry are
not known and that Edmund Rice's descendants can not claim
royal ancestry.

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  Burial Notes

North Cemetery (also known as North Wayland Cemetery or Old North Cemetery) in what is now known as Wayland, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, USA

  Recorded Events in His Life

• Fact: First ancestor by name of Rice to come to America.

• Deacon Edmund Rice and his family came to America from England in 1638, settling in Sudbury, Massachusetts.

• Fact: Edmund Rice took the Freeman's Oath and could vote thereafter, in 1640.

• Fact: Edmund Rice was appointed as magistrate to hear small cases, in 1641.

• Moved: Abt 1656, Marlborough Settlement, Middlesex County, Massachusetts Bay Colony.

• Fact: named Selectman at incorporation of town of Marlborough, Massachusetts, in 1660, in Marlborough Village, Middlesex County, Massachusetts Bay Colony.