Individual Details

Mary wasn't the widow of the Rev. John Blacknall who served the Parish from the beginning of the book in 1740 (perhaps earlier) until he died in 1747 because his widow seems to have been the Mrs. Ann Blacknall who received a large payment of tobacco on 20 Oct 1748 from Kingston Parish (approximately half of the payment Rev. John had been receiving per year)
She wasn't the widow of Charles Blacknall whose wife was a Mary and who had two children baptized in Kingston Parish - Charles, b. 10 Jan, & bap 19 Feb 1758 and Mary, b. 16 Aug, bap. 12 Sep 1755. Charles died between the Nov 1761 vestry meeting and the one in Nov of 1762 when his position was replaced.
There is possibility that Mary was called "Mrs" in the register because of her position in the community, daughter of the Kingston Parish clergyman. She may have been the daughter of the Rev. John and Ann Blacknall, sister to Charles.

[The underlining in the following article which is applicable to 'Mrs' Mary Blacknall is my own.]
Winter 2012 American Ancestors from NEGHS
David Allen Lambert's column, "The Online Genealogist Answers Your Questions", p.19.
[Question]
My ancestor was listed as a "Mrs." in a 1750 Newbury, Massachusetts, record - even though I do not believe she had yet been married. Was "Mrs." ever used for unmarried women?
[Answer]
Yes. In an essay entitled "Terms of Relationship in Colonial Times" in The American Genealogist (55:53), noted genealogist George E. McCracken wrote: "The word 'Mr.' normally means a person of some prestige in the community, a civil official, a clergyman, a sea captain, a military officer, a merchant or wealthy landower ....The wife of one entitled to be called 'Mr.' is called 'Mrs.' and this latter term may mean an unmarried lady of the same class, whether abbreviated or spelled out as 'Mistress."
Robert Charles Anderson of the Great Migration Study Project notes that the use of "Mrs." for an unmarried woman is more an eighteenth-century than a seventeenth-century usage, with an increase in frequency beginning perhaps in the 1680s or 1690s.


I suspect Thomas Brookes was Mary's first and only husband. But if Mary was a young widow - a possibility that cannot be completely eliminated:
Was Mary's name Mary Iverson? Is this how the Iverson named was dispersed? Jonathan named a son Iverson - but his wife's father's name was Iverson Lewis.. Christopher W., son of Christopher, named a son Iverson. Elizabeth (Brooks) Holderness named a son Iverson. The Gwyn family in Caswell who had also come from Kingston Parish named a son Iverson Gwyn. Or perhaps Mary was nee Gwyn and the Iverson was an earlier association.

Spouse	THOMAS BROOKES (1730 - 1819)
Child	Christopher Brookes (1755 - 1781)
Child	George Brookes (1757 - 1782)
Child	SARAH B. "SALLIE" BROOKES ( - )
Child	Jonathan Brookes (1762 - 1834)
Child	CHARLES B. BROOKS (1764 - 1816)
Child	Mary Brookes (1766 - 1840)
Child	Thomas Brookes Jr. (1768 - 1793)