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Beginning the Mayflower Quest Part Eight: Working with the weekly Reports

Pilgrim Memorial State Park in Plymouth, Massachusetts

There are currently 188 people watching Francis Cooke LZ2F-MM7 and 544 past contributors. How many of them do you think agree on every detail of his life and his family? Once you have taken on a project to work with a "Revolving Door" ancestor or family, you probably will want to check your FamilySearch Family Tree messages and look at any particularly "changeable" ancestors more frequently than once a week. Getting upset or mad about the changes is nonproductive. Anyway, before you get mad, you should make absolutely sure that anything you do is supported by sources (in the plural) and makes sense. Make use of the Recents menu on the Family Tree to quickly review any changes. If you made the last change, then your name should be at the top of the list of Latest Changes. 

Here is an example of a weekly report. 

As you can see from the heading, this report includes changes to 15 people and has a total of 74 changes. As I pointed out previously with an early report, Most of those changes pertain to one individual, in my case, Francis Cooke LZ2F-MM7. 

You can review a report like this in just a few minutes if you don't have a Revolving Door ancestor (or more) on the list. In the case of Francis Cooke, the changes can be fairly complex. I am guessing but after reviewing thousands of changes over the years, I believe that only about 10% or less have a supporting source. The most frequent changes almost never have a source listed supporting the change. This particular list took me just a few minutes to review. Except for Francis Cooke, the rest of the changes were adding sources or similar activities. 

If those people who were correcting the incorrect changes would have taken one more step, then the number of changes would have gone down by now. As I have noted in previous posts. it is important to explain to the person making the wrong change why their change was wrong. Usually, a short answer is not enough. I compile a set of "standard" responses to the most common changes and have them in a program or file that I can access easily. I copy the response and use it as the reason for me changing the error and also send a copy of the reason to the person who made the improper change. I only very occasionally get any response back but I notice that the person seldom makes the same change again. 

What about those people out there who are certain that their information is correct and continue to change it back? I have found the sending longer and longer explanations usually helps but sometimes you just have to last them out and keep correcting the entry until they get tired of the process. I never get tired of the process. With an ancestor such as Francis Cooke, you cannot expect to see any results from your efforts for months or even years of work. But slowly, the old PAF files and GEDCOM files are exhausted and no one has anymore basis for taking an interest in your and their ancestor. 

It certainly helps if there are other relatives who are willing to assist in the process but don't count on that happening. If you do find someone correcting bad entries and supporting changes with valid sources, it is a good idea to send them a thank you note. 

It is extremely important that you do all the research and know more than you think is even reasonable about the people you support in this way. Don't be part of the problem. By the way, do not ever use a Mayflower Society Application as a supporting source for a change. Always go to original contemporary, if possible, sources. 

See previous posts

Introduction: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2020/06/popularity-on-familysearch-family-tree.html

Part One: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2020/06/beginning-mayflower-quest-evaluating.html

Part Two: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2020/06/beginning-mayflower-quest-part-two.html

Part Three: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2020/07/beginning-mayflower-quest-part-three.html

Part Four: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2020/07/beginning-mayflower-quest-part-fourth.html

Part Five: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2020/07/beginning-mayflower-quest-part-five.html

Part Seven: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2020/07/beginning-mayflower-quest-part-six.html

Post Eight: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2020/07/beginning-mayflower-quest-part-seven.html

Beginning the Mayflower Quest Part Seven: Adding in another ancestral line

Post Card Public Domain Pilgrims on the shore of Massachusetts Bay

Quoting from Caleb Johnson's MayflowerHistory.com

The Pilgrims are often depicted in popular culture as wearing only black and white clothing, with large golden buckles on their shoes and hats and long white collars. This stereotypical Pilgrim, however, is not historically accurate. The Pilgrims, in fact, wore a wide variety of colors. This is known because when a person died, an inventory was made of their estate for the purpose of probate: and often the color of various clothing items were mentioned. For example, long-time church member, Mary Ring, died in Plymouth in 1633, and her estate included a "mingled-color" waistcoat, two violet waistcoats, three blue aprons, a red petticoat, a violet petticoat, blue stockings, and white stockings. In addition, she owned gray cloth, blue cloth and red cloth, ready to make additional clothing. Plymouth's Church Elder William Brewster, who died in 1644, owned green pants, a red cap, a violet coat, and a blue suit. And Governor William Bradford, when he died in 1657, owned a green gown, violet cloak, and a red waistcoat.

So this old postcard from the 1930s is not too far off but the popular iconic depictions usually shown during the Thanksgiving season are very misleading. By the way, almost half the passengers on the Mayflower were fare-paying and seeking a new life and not driven by religious convictions. Despite the lack of religion, all of the passengers are frequently referred to as "Pilgrims."

I am working on my most prominent Mayflower lines in this series. The objective is to help decrease the number of changes being made almost daily to Francis Cooke LZ2F-MM7 in the FamilySearch.org Family Tree. During the course of writing this series, I will be explaining in excruciating detail the research and background that go into maintaining a "Revolving Door" ancestor or ancestral line. During this initial period of this project, I will be checking each of the ancestral lines regularly (daily) for any changes. I have already found some very competent and persistent genealogists who have the background and the motivation to add and correct even my information. Thanks. 

Anyway, Francis Cooke's son, John Cooke 99WH-WYF married Richard Warren's KXML-7XC daughter, Sarah Warren 93WJ-W32. So both Francis Cooke and Richard Warren are my direct line ancestors. I posted a 4 generation family group record in Part Five of this series showing this part of my family lines. (See links below). As I have mentioned previously, both Francis and John Cooke were Mayflower passengers. 

One of my earliest discoveries when I first began my genealogical research path was that there is almost nothing known about the parents or ancestry of almost all the Mayflower passengers. There is some speculation (including my own) about the reason for this lack of information but the reality is that over a hundred years of genealogical research has failed to document most of the passenger's parents and the few that are known are subject to intense scrutiny. The results of all this research are that it is fairly simple to correct any unsourced or unfounded additions or changes to the Mayflower passengers. The problem is that they are subject to almost constant changes. 

OK, so some of this is repetitious but so is correcting the changed entries. 

 Richard Warren KXML-7XC has 69 attached sources on the Family Tree. Here is the citation to the Silver Book about Richard Warren.

Wakefield, Robert S., John Bradley Arthaud, Jane Fletcher Fiske, and Judith Haddock Swan. 2011. Mayflower families through five generations. descendants of the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth, Massachusetts, in December 1620 Volume 18, part 2, Volume 18, part 2.

According to the program Relative Finder, which looks for links through my family lines on the FamilySearch Family Tree, I also have Myles Standish as a direct line ancestor but the Family Tree can find no such relationship. Looking down four generations from Myles Standish I cannot see any familiar surnames so I doubt that possible connection. 

The most recent changes on the Family Tree for Richard Warren look to have been corrected quickly by people who know about the actual sources and history but I will start watching my entire line of ancestors and as possible their descendants. 

See these previous posts:

Introduction: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2020/06/popularity-on-familysearch-family-tree.html

Part One: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2020/06/beginning-mayflower-quest-evaluating.html

Part Two: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2020/06/beginning-mayflower-quest-part-two.html

Part Three: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2020/07/beginning-mayflower-quest-part-three.html

Part Four: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2020/07/beginning-mayflower-quest-part-fourth.html

Part Five: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2020/07/beginning-mayflower-quest-part-five.html

Part Seven: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2020/07/beginning-mayflower-quest-part-six.html

Beginning the Mayflower Quest Part Six: Looking at the changes

This is my photo of the Plymouth Rock. You can see the seam where the two parts were put back together

Here is the notice from FamilySearch this week about the changes to the people I am watching. 

FamilySearch has announced that they will stop sending out the emails and that in the future, they will be notifying users through the internal FamilySearch.org Family Tree Messaging system. As of the date of this post, I am still getting weekly email notices. 

How many of these changes were to my target ancestor Francis Cooke LZ2F-MM7? The answer is 40 changes in one week. Here is a screenshot of part of the list.

There are some changes that were not in the count from FamilySearch because they occurred the day this post was written. What am I going to do? Basically, use the same system that I have now used for years. I gave an example of what I might say back in Part Four of this series. 

The first issue on the list is someone adding in parents for Francis Cooke without reading the Life Sketch or knowing anything about him or his history. Here is what has been added:

Of course, there were no sources added and no reason for adding a duplicate record. This person saw that Francis Cooke was born in 1583 and now so changed the date of Edward Cooke's death to 1583 all without a source. What am I going to do? I will make the necessary changes by merging the duplicate and unlinking the child. This leaves a floating duplicate for Edward Cooke and his wife Alice Caunton. The changes have been made. I did find the duplicate for Edward Cooke and resolved that one also. 

Making those changes back solved the issues for a while. My next step will be to create an entry on Ancestry.com with all the sources and information about Francis Cooke. This backup of the information will allow me to restore any information that may be lost by changes. When I looked at Ancestry.com, I can exchange information back and forth because of the FamilySearch/Ancestry Partnership and the access to Ancestry provided to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Because of this link, I discovered another duplicate of Francis Cooke in the Family Tree which I resolved. 

Another task for the near future is to go through all 56 sources listed for Francis Cooke and make sure they are all actually sources. 

See these previous posts:

Introduction: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2020/06/popularity-on-familysearch-family-tree.html

Part One: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2020/06/beginning-mayflower-quest-evaluating.html

Part Two: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2020/06/beginning-mayflower-quest-part-two.html

Part Three: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2020/07/beginning-mayflower-quest-part-three.html

Part Four: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2020/07/beginning-mayflower-quest-part-fourth.html

Part Five: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2020/07/beginning-mayflower-quest-part-five.html

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:

Introduction: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2020/06/popularity-on-familysearch-family-tree.html

Part One: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2020/06/beginning-mayflower-quest-evaluating.html

Part Two: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2020/06/beginning-mayflower-quest-part-two.html

Part Three: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2020/07/beginning-mayflower-quest-part-three.html

Part Four: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2020/07/beginning-mayflower-quest-part-fourth.html

Beginning the Mayflower Quest Part Four: On my way to the passengers

An Old Postcard By Pub. by Smith's Inc., Plymouth, Mass. Tichnor Bros. Inc., Boston, Mass. - Boston Public Library Tichnor Brothers collection #61532, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46122563

There are only two generations between my Great-grandmother, Thankful Tefft LKKM-LWN, and the 5th generation of Mayflower descendants. So, for me, the task of connecting to a Mayflower passenger is simplified by using the Silver Books. Here is the book for Francis Cooke LZ2F-MM7.

Wood, Ralph V., and Lucy Mary Kellogg. 2015. Mayflower families through five generations: descendants of the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth, Mass., December 1620. Vol. 12 family of Francis Cooke

Thankful Tefft's father was William Tefft LZBC-H9Y. I showed the sources for his parents and birthdate in the previous post in this series. However, I left that post with a need to do some more research. However, the five generations in the Mayflower series included the family of his mother, Esther Brownell LWQZ-G2B, who is actually the next person in line. So, with the inclusion of William Tefft LZBC-H9Y, I have the gold standard source for his birth and parents. 

Mayflower Families Fifth Generation Descendants, 1700-1880. (Online database: AmericanAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2017). From Mayflower Families Through Five Generations: Descendants of the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth, Mass., December 1620. Plymouth, MA: General Society of Mayflower Descendants, 1975-2015.

https://www.americanancestors.org/DB2728/i/53443/367/72504416

William Tefft appears on the next page and you can see that the Mayflower Society agrees with the 29 February 1732 birthdate. 

Mayflower Families Fifth Generation Descendants, 1700-1880. (Online database: AmericanAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2017). From Mayflower Families Through Five Generations: Descendants of the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth, Mass., December 1620. Plymouth, MA: General Society of Mayflower Descendants, 1975-2015.

https://www.americanancestors.org/DB2728/i/53443/368/72504417

What if the Silver Books are wrong? Well, you could join the Mayflower Society, assuming that you have a Mayflower passenger as an ancestor and you could do all the research and submit your proposed findings to the Mayflower Quarterly Magazine or directly to the Society for consideration. I have seen some corrections to books in the past, but this is the most recent edition of the books and includes five generations of descendants. 

In this case, the information supplied in the book for William Tefft exactly supports the conclusions in the Family Tree. Here is the question. What else is not supported by the research documented in the Mayflower Families Fifth Generation Descendants, 1700-1880? Well, right off the bat, we have an extra child in the Joseph Tefft KP42-4JS and Esther Brownell LWQZ-G2B family. Here is the screenshot. 

If you look at the page of the book above, you will see that there is no "Nathan Tefft" listed. This extra child was added back in 2028 and so far the addition has not been challenged. This person has no Sources and no Memories. There is also a possible duplicate. This is one of the most common if not the most common unsupported changes made to the Family Tree. In this case, the fact that the person has a name and an approximate date is not persuasive of any relationship. The fact that this extra child does not show up in the Silver Books outweighs any argument that there was an extra child. Here is the screenshot of the possible duplicate.

I could talk about the "burden of proof" here but legal jargon and arguments are not appropriate. Good research methodology would suggest that adding a child to a family be supported by some contemporary, historical source document. When I went to view the possible duplicate person, I found that he had at least three possible duplicates with other parents. None of these possible duplicates have any listed sources. It appears that there is a pool of Nathan Teffts out there with no supporting sources and they have been attached or not to various other people in the Family Tree. A quick search for anyone named "Nathan Tefft" on FamilySearch comes up with 10,784 results. I guess you can take your pick. 

For now, without any supporting documents at all and given the duplicates, it is time to detach him from the Joseph Tefft and Esther Brownell Family. Of course, I am going to leave an explanation. I thought I would start sharing my explanations with this series of posts. Here is what I wrote as a reason for removing Nathan Tefft. 

Thank you for your interest in the Tefft family. You added an extra child to this family, Nathan Tefft L1HZ-29Z. You did not supply any sources for the addition of this extra child in the family. Extensive research done by the Mayflower Society over the past 100+ years has failed to find any additional children in the family of Joseph Tefft and Esther Brownell. I have detached Nathan Tefft from the family. If you have any documentation showing Nathan's parents I would be glad to have him added back into the family. See Mayflower Families Fifth Generation Descendants, 1700-1880. (Online database: AmericanAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2017). From Mayflower Families Through Five Generations: Descendants of the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth, Mass., December 1620. Plymouth, MA: General Society of Mayflower Descendants, 1975-2015.

https://www.americanancestors.org/DB2728/i/53443/368/72504417

It is very likely given the duplicates that came up that this individual is really a child in another family. When a person is detached from a family, nothing happens to the individual detached. They are still in the Family Tree and with some research, they could be attached to another family. I did not make any of the possible merges. There is not enough information about the person named Nathan Tefft to distinguish him from the other 10,784 of them in the Family Tree.

Now I am back another generation to Joseph Tefft and Esther Brownell. Esther Brownell is my direct line ancestor back to Francis Cooke. By the way, I learned that FamilySearch is adding some of the Mayflower genealogy to the Community Trees section of the Genealogies link on FamilySearch.org. 

On to the next generation.  

See these previous posts:

Introduction: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2020/06/popularity-on-familysearch-family-tree.html

Part One: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2020/06/beginning-mayflower-quest-evaluating.html

Part Two: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2020/06/beginning-mayflower-quest-part-two.html

Part Three: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2020/07/beginning-mayflower-quest-part-three.html

Beginning the Mayflower Quest Part Three: Step by Step Back in Time

The goal of this post series is to illustrate a research process in conjunction with the FamilySearch.org Family Tree. The goal is to reaffirm my direct line connection with a remote ancestor, Francis Cooke LZ2F-MM7, and then monitor the status of this "Revolving Door" ancestor and try to slow down the number of changes made to this person. I am begging this process with a well-verified ancestor named Thankful Tefft LKKM-LWN. I verified this particular ancestral line many years ago and since that time, I have added a substantial number of additional sources to the Family Tree along that line. 

As I have written before, the idea here and with every entry in the Family Tree is to verify with sources the connection between every child and every parent. In following this rule, all of us need to make sure the places, names, and dates are reasonable and supported by those same sources. Adding an inappropriately sourced child to a family is easily one of the most common mistakes made when working on the Family Tree. Sometimes it is a real challenge to get the children right. I will be returning to this issue frequently in this series. 

Now, starting with Thankful Tefft LKKM-LWN, there are presently 56 sources. Let's see if any of them substantiate her birth and the identity of her parents. 

Here are the sources with both birth information and the identity of her parents (by the way, there are several duplicate entries):

• Tifft, Maria Elizabeth (Maxon). A Partial Record of the Descendants of John Tefft, of Portsmouth, Rhode Island, and the Nearly Complete Record of the Descendants of John Tifft, of Nassau, New York .. Buffalo, N. Y. : The Peter Paul book company, 1896. http://archive.org/details/partialrecordofd00tiffiala.
• Rhode Island Births and Christenings, 1600-1914", database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:F87W-QSZ : 17 December 2019), Thankful Tefft, 1757
• Ancestry.com. Rhode Island, Birth Index, 1636-1930 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2000. https://search.ancestry.com/collections/4262/records/4195
• Book Title: Descendants of John Tanner : Born August 15, 1778, at Hopkintown, Rhode Island : Died April 15, 185, Ancestry.com. North America, Family Histories, 1500-2000 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2016. (Only father identified)

All of these entries are consistent as to the date, place, and name information. There have been some issues in the past over the correct place information but a timeline of the name changes shows that the most accurate place name is "Hopkinton, Kings, Rhode Island." FamilySearch adds "British Colonial America" to its standardized entries but there is a lack of consensus as to whether or not this is an appropriate geographical or political designation. 

Do I feel confident in moving on to the next generation? The places are reasonable because her children were also born in the same location. The time is reasonable because calculating her age at the time each child was born is possible and consistent. This, along with marriage information adds a degree of certainty to the birth information. Although none of the sources are first-hand accounts of her birth, they are all reasonably reliable and consistent. 

So, I move on to William Tefft and Mary Kenyon. The first obvious issue is that none of the Thankful Tefft sources except the first one give Thankful Tefft's mother's maiden name. But the book is very specific and gives the marriage information. Here is a screenshot of the entry in the book. 

Remember, the Family Tree is an open, collaborative wiki-like website and someone could find a document or record at any time and challenge or change information. That is the main reason that I keep adding sources. 

In this case, since the next generation to connect to Francis Cooke LZ2F-MM7 is through William Tefft LZ2F-MM7, we do not have to spend a lot of time in this post looking at his family. Of course, I have done research on his family, including his wife. Mary Kenyon LWQZ-JG2, Thankful Tefft's mother is well documented with 34 sources. In this series of posts, because the ancestral line connecting me to Francis Cooke is through William Tefft's parents, I will focus on whether or not there are sources connecting William Tefft to his parents. 

William Tefft has 47 sources. Let's see if any of those sources indicate his birth information and the identity of his parents. His birth information is as follows:

This entry says there are five sources for his birth. Let's see if that is correct (I never really have any confidence in automatically generated information)

• Rhode Island Births and Christenings, 1600-1914", database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:V2HH-K48 : 17 December 2019), William Tefft, 1731.
• Book Title: Descendants of John Tanner : Born August 15, 1778, at Hopkintown, Rhode Island : Died April 15, 185, Ancestry.com. North America, Family Histories, 1500-2000 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2016.
• Edmund West, comp.. Family Data Collection - Individual Records [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2000.
• Tifft, Maria Elizabeth (Maxon). A Partial Record of the Descendants of John Tefft, of Portsmouth, Rhode Island, and the Nearly Complete Record of the Descendants of John Tifft, of Nassau, New York .. Buffalo, N. Y. : The Peter Paul book company, 1896. http://archive.org/details/partialrecordofd00tiffiala.

In going through these records, one of the entries has an exact birth date for him. It is 29 February 1732. This is an unusual date because it indicates a leap year. I confirmed that 1732 was actually a leap year so this date may be correct. Since we have a source already cited, I decided to add the specific date to his individual record with an explanation. This entry also shows the maiden name of his mother. 

At this point, I wanted to see if there were any other sources showing his parents and/or exact birthdate. Time to do some research. So stay tuned to see what that research shows and to continue on with working my way up the pedigree. 

See these previous posts

Introduction: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2020/06/popularity-on-familysearch-family-tree.html

Part One: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2020/06/beginning-mayflower-quest-evaluating.html

Part Two: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2020/06/beginning-mayflower-quest-part-two.html