Some people eat, sleep and chew gum, I do genealogy and write...

Sunday, July 5, 2020

Beginning the Mayflower Quest Part Five: Reaching the initial goal

The Mayflower Compact 1620 by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris - This image is available from the United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID cph.3g07155. Public Domain

My ancestors and the initial goal of this series of posts were signers on the Mayflower Compact in 1620. See "Mayflower Compact" 

Esther Brownell's LWQZ-G2B parents were Thomas Brownell LWQZ-G2B (b. 1674 d. 1750) and Esther Taber L5JW-9GY (b. 1680 d. 1715). See the following showing the children of Phillip Taber and Mary Cooke:

Mayflower Births and Deaths, Vol. 1 and 2 for Esther Taber Page 368 showing her parents

Mayflower Births and Deaths, Vol. 1 and 2 for Esther Taber Page 368 showing the children

Many of the records from this time period are available as transcriptions or copies and it is not unusual to find inconsistencies in the dates and places. In these cases, it is important to look at as many sources as you can find. Remember the 1752 calendar change when the Julian Calendar was replaced by the Gregorian Calendar. See "The 1752 Calendar Change." so dates around this time period that seem to be off by a year may actually be the same. Quoting from the Connecticut State Library. 
England's calendar change included three major components. The Julian Calendar was replaced by the Gregorian Calendar, changing the formula for calculating leap years.  The beginning of the legal new year was moved from March 25 to January 1.  Finally, 11 days were dropped from the month of September 1752. 

The changeover involved a series of steps:

December 31, 1750 was followed by January 1, 1750 (under the "Old Style" calendar, December was the 10th month and January the 11th)
March 24, 1750 was followed by March 25, 1751 (March 25 was the first day of the "Old Style" year)
December 31, 1751 was followed by January 1, 1752 (the switch from March 25 to January 1 as the first day of the year)
September 2, 1752 was followed by September 14, 1752 (drop of 11 days to conform to the Gregorian calendar)
These calendar changes are usually referred to as "New Style" and "Old Style." The main thing to remember is "1751-1752." Dates before that time may have been recorded after that time in either New Style or Old Style or both. In the Old Style, the New Year began in most of Europe on January 1st beginning in 1582 but England and its colonies (New England) did not make the change from March 25th until the calendar change in 1752. So December 31, 1751, was followed by January 1, 1752. See Wikipedia: Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 and "Why Does the New Year Start on January 1?." The easiest thing to do is to record the date as it appears in the record unless there is some issue with conflicting records and then you will have to figure out if the calendar change made a difference. There is also some issues with children in the same family looking like they were born too close together and with marriage and death dates. Yes, it is complicated. 

Here is a screenshot of the last few generations between me and Francis Cooke of the Mayflower. 


Meanwhile, back in the Family Tree, we have the following added in the last day or two.


OK, so someone added a new duplicate wife for my direct line ancestor John Cooke and an apparent duplicate child. I don't think I will go through all the details here but the Sarah Warren LT4N-D4Q, the person attached to John Cooke was married to someone named James Cooke, at least that is what one source attached to that Sarah Warren maintains. Also, the child added, Sarah Cooke, was born when her mother was seven years old. It would be interesting if the problem stopped there (by the way I am having flashbacks to all the times I have looked at stuff like this. This is one reason I have waited so long to dive into the fray) But I do find the detail page for the new Sarah Warren to be instructive. 


Digging into this page, it seems like someone has created a family and multiple wives without supporting sources and just sort-of out of the blue. It will take me a while to untangle this. So I will end this post in the series but I will be back. 

See these previous posts:
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