Passenger on the Mayflower!
ANCESTRAL SUMMARY:

The ancestry of Edward Doty is unknown.  He came on the Mayflower as an apprentice ("servant") to Stephen Hopkins. The Mormon's I.G.I. says Edward Doty was born in Shropshire, England on 14 May 1598, but this record is complete fiction. [For more information on this hoax, see The American Genealogist 63:215].  

Another entry, which is circulated widely on the internet and is also on the 1994 I.G.I. addendum is that he was baptized 14 May 1598 in St. Mary le Strand, Thurburton Hills, Suffolk, England, son of John.  This is just a perversion of the fictional Shropshire origins, and this record is, again, completely mythical.  To begin with, there is no such place as Thurburton Hills, Suffolk.  Further, the parish of St. Mary le Strand is in London not Suffolk, and contains absolutely no baptismal entries for any Edward Doty's from 1595 to 1600.  

There are no fewer than eight known genuine Edward Doty baptisms that occurred between 1585 and 1605, but none have been conclusively identified as the Edward Doty of the Mayflower .  

Edward was an apprentice (servant) to Stephen Hopkins, and apprentices could not generally get married until their contract term was up.  William Bradford, in his Journal Of Plymouth Plantation, states in early 1651 "But Edward Doty by a second wife hath seven children, and both he and they are living."  Doty's mysterious first marriage must have occurred in Plymouth sometime after he was released from his contract with Hopkins (which apparently occurred between 1623 and 1627).  Nothing is known about his first marriage, and all his children were by his second marriage to Faith Clarke.

BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY:

Edward Doty is recorded as a contentious man, often getting himself in trouble with the law. On 18 June 1621 he fought a duel with Edward Leister, which would become the Colony's first (and only) duel. Neither were seriously injured, and both were subsequently punished by having their heels tied to their neck.  However, their punishment was cut short due to their apparent suffering.

Doty was in court on a number of occasions, mostly in civil disputes.  On 2 January 1632/3, Edward Doty was sued by three different people: John Washburn, Joseph Rogers, and William Bennett.  It all appears to have been a disagreement about a trade of some hogs; John Washburn's case was thrown out, Joseph Rogers was awarded four bushels of corn.  In William Bennett's case, Edward Doty was found guilty of slander, and fined 50 shillings.  Two years later, in March 1633/4, Edward Doty was fined 9 shillings and 11 pence for drawing blood in a fight with Josias Cooke.  In January 1637/8, Doty was fined for assaulting George Clarke.  

In 1639, Edward Doty posted "bail" for John Coombes, who was charged with giving out poisoned drinks.  There were a number of other civil disputes and court matters that Edward Doty was involved with.  And however disagreeable in personality, Edward Doty was mostly involved in simple civil disputes and was never in any serious official trouble.

SOURCES:

Peter Hill, Mayflower Families for Five Generations: Edward Doty , volume 11, part 1 and 2 (Plymouth: General Society of Mayflower Descendants, 1996).

Eugene Aubrey Stratton, Plymouth Colony: Its History and Its People, 1620-1691 (Ancestor Publishers: Salt Lake City, 1986).

William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation , ed. Samuel Morison (New York: Random House, 1952).

Neil D. Thompson, "A False Account of the Birth and Parentage of Edward Doty exposed," The American Genealogist 63:215.

Robert C. Anderson, The Great Migration Begins , 1:573-577 (Boston: New England Historical and Genealogical Society, 1995).

Charles Edward Banks, English Ancestry and Homes of the Pilgrim Fathers (Baltiore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1929).