ABSTRACT
Family history is particularly useful, in that one can focus on the way in which members of this family lived their own history while being active participants in larger national and international historical developments. The Verins were English nonconformists who took part in the “Great Migration” in the first half of the seventeenth century. In order to understand Joshua Verin and Jane Verin’s actions, one needs to understand puritan theology, especially as it applied to marriage and family. Like Anne Hutchinson, Jane Verin, too, was a woman of conscience who was willing to defy those who would exert governorship over her. Few people have ever heard of the Verins; Jane Verin left no letters, diary or other personal documents and disappears from the historical record after 1640. The Verins themselves contributed in discrete ways to the construction of that larger narrative. Women’s roles in puritan churches must be investigated to shed light on Jane Verin and her behavior.
