Family talk:Henry Botsford and Elizabeth Woolhead (2)

The Identification of Elizabeth Woolhead as Wife of Henry Botsford is Not Proven [30 May 2012]

Mr. Wheeler presents an interesting possibility, but no proof. The fact that no surviving children are born until nine years after the 1631/32 marriage, followed by six in succession who survived to marry raises questions. And even if the 1631/32 marriage was that of Henry Botsford, the immigrant, nine years is plenty of time to bury one wife and acquire another. Quoting Jacobus, "The searcher, if wise, will not place [an unproven] name on the ancestral chart he is preparing. It is better to leave the space blank than to fill in a name for which no record evidence has been cited, and which is admittedly a guess." [TAG 10:132].--jaques1724 09:15, 30 May 2012 (EDT)

Is there any evidence for at least Henry's wifes first name, or none at all? I havent researched the Botsfords much past Elnathan. Otherwise, I think the space between the births is probably a good reason to reject Elizabeth as the mother. I would also be curious if the identification of Henry's parents are suspect. I notice that the page for them, as of now, doesnt seem to have any sources to speak of. --DMaxwell 13:14, 30 May 2012 (EDT)

The Jacobus article in TAG Vol. 14 pretty much nails that down with wills and church records. I just haven't gotten around to cleaning that up yet. Botsford's aren't one of my families, but when I stumble on something like this, I like to clean it up when I can.--jaques1724 13:33, 30 May 2012 (EDT)

Yeah sorry Ive been adding stubs and merging without adding much sources, yet. The Botsford were a mess when I first got to them. The sources part of WR Im still figuring out. I might be prompting alot of your cleanup, although I will get rid of junk sources when I start to clean up pages.

One problem Im running into with that is that alot of these sources are known to me but totally unavailable online. If you go down the Botsford line from Henry, son of Elnathan, the proof that Albert C Batterson is George Batterson's son is in a family bible, but no longer online.--DMaxwell 13:37, 30 May 2012 (EDT)

If you're doing a lot of work in colonial New England, I really recommend membership the the New England Historic Genealogical Society. The member portion of their site has a complete run of their Register from January 1847 to date, Jacobus' American Genealogist now up through 1993 (the intent is to get caught up over time but to stay five years behind the actual publications. Pertinent to research in the New Haven and Fairfield County area, they have Jacobus' Families of Ancient New Haven and Families of Old Fairfield and are working on getting the complete Barbour series of Connecticut Vital Records (a few towns like Norwich, New Haven, Mansfield, Coventry, Bolton and Vernon were published prior to Barbour, but I think they're all on the site now. Membership is a bit expensive at $79.95 a year, but is absolutely the single most important tool I use for research. By the way, they do not have Abbott's Families of Early Milford, but I have it on CD-ROM and am willing to do limited lookups in a pinch.--jaques1724 15:38, 30 May 2012 (EDT)

Yeah at the moment I am using Barbour from Ancestry.com for alot of the sources I have been adding, although Ive wanted to get a NEGS subscription. You wouldnt happen to know of a source for back issues of The National Genealogical Siciety Quarterly, would you? There are several issues of it I need to be able to source the Hume/Wheeler portion of my own tree.

Also, if you are just willing to lend a hand on New England genealogy (mine is mostly Southern Colonial, but I have several NE lines too, as you might be able to see since we have so many watch pages in common) there are a few lines I could use some help with.

1. Gov. William Leete - other than the very old book on him, there appears to be nothing strong on his ancestry, although his parents are positive. There are some conflicts with the established genealogies for him. 2. The line of the family of Luke Guire of CT, which is in my tree. The Guires seem weakly documented. 3. Gov. John Webster's ancestry (and that of his wife). There are also conflicts in the basic genealogies for him as well.--DMaxwell 15:45, 30 May 2012 (EDT)