Family talk:Ezekiel Turner and Susanna Keeny (1)

evidence for alt. marriage? [9 December 2011]

I removed the alternate marriage of the same date in "Plymouth, Litchfield, Connecticut, United States|Scituate, Plymouth, Connecticut" (which places names are not defined in WeRelate). I assume this place is meant to be Scituate, Plymouth, Massachusetts, United States, where Ezekiel Turner was born, but the marriage is not listed in vital records of Scituate, nor is there any marriage for any person named Keeny, Keeney, or Kenny, indicating this family was never in that town. Further, Susannah Keeny's birth in 1662 is found in New London, and Ezekiel's and Susannah's children are born there, not to mention their marriage, so everything points to the marriage taking place in New London.

I have not seen "CALKINS WORLD Vol. 1 #1 Oct. 1993", and no abstract of its argument is given, so it is difficult to assess if any evidence is given. My assumption is obviously that there is none, though clearly I am only judging a source by its reflections. Though an Internet search I find it is published by the Calkins Family Association and their genealogy book published 2000 only mentions a child of this marriage as a spouse without discussing the event itself. By extrapolation, their newsletter wouldn't be expected to be particularly focused on Turner genealogy. Therefore, given the vital records all suggest the location of the marriage was New London, it seems likely a location in Scituate is based on an unsupported assertion or misinterpretation. If this assumption is wrong, perhaps an abstract of the evidence could be posted, to help the various readers who don't have access to this newsletter, since it is contradicting, not infallible, but somewhat high quality evidence? --Jrich 10:22, 7 December 2011 (EST)

Thanks for cleaning that up. That was my interpretation of the alt marriage entry as well. I suspect it's a misinterpretation of this line in the New London listings for Keeny....

# Susannah, dau Jno., m. Ezekiel TURNER, son John, of Sittuate, Dec. 26, 1678 

Also, I would have interpreted Lucretia's birth date as 1701/02 as opposed to 1700/01. What do you think?

--Pkeegstra 11:32, 7 December 2011 (EST)

I think I have the whole family of Ezekiel and Susanna now. I couldn't get birth dates for a couple of the spouses.--Pkeegstra 07:19, 8 December 2011 (EST)

Such interpretations are best made after considering all the information so I am not really in a good position to do so. Based only on a superficial analysis of New London records I would agree. At that time, according to the legal calendar of the time, January was the 11th month of the year and I would assume most government records would presumptively follow the legal calendar unless there are other indications, so I would guess it means 20 Jan 1701/02 in the double dating system. On the other hand, Ezekiel's entry, 14 Mar 1699, is much more problematic and hard to tell without at least access to the original document, if not additional evidence. 14 Mar was prior to New Years Day on 25 Mar, so technically part of the old year (i.e., 14 Mar 1699/00), but March was considered the first month of the new year, and many diaries and books that were divided into years seemed to put all of March into the new year (i.e., 14 Mar 1698/99). The fact that neither interpretation is indicated generally means the compiler didn't feel they saw enough in the original document to confidently select one interpretation over the other (different, for example, than what they did with the Ezekiel death date in "1703/04"). --Jrich 11:00, 8 December 2011 (EST)

Sigh. I would have hoped that maintainers of official church and civic records would have been scrupulous about adhering to the technical specifications of the calendric system in force. But it sounds like that was not always the case. So what then is the best practice of the community given a (technically ambiguous) unsplit date and no additional information? Does one leave the date ambiguous or does one assume that the date reflects scrupulous adherence to the calendric system, and convert it to a split date with the later year? (e.g. a conformant 1 Mar 1750 written then would be expressed now as 1 Mar 1750/1, right?) --Pkeegstra 17:17, 9 December 2011 (EST)

Hating to create an error in a field where there are already plenty, I would do one of three things depending on what other sources says:

1. If I had nothing else, leave it ambiguous
2. If I have a source, especially by one of the better genealogists, that gives an answer, I'd follow it and cite it so it is clear it is not me talking
3. If I had other information, such as birth of sibling, that made me favor one over the other, I'd attach a note and explain my reasoning so the reader could asses exactly how reasonable it is for themselves.

--Jrich 20:13, 9 December 2011 (EST)