Family talk:Jabez Bunker and Hannah Gardner (1)

Marriage date; lack of sources [30 November 2010]

The marriage date on this page "19 Nov 1706" has no source to support it. The VR Nantucket say "Jan. 19, 1706" and duplicate "Sep 19, 1706", but not November. But the source is not the official records, but PR38, the genealogical records of William C. Folger, who makes numerous date errors in other records, since he apparently kept his records using month numbers, often converted old style numbering to new style, and frequently is found to have made mistakes when there is an original record to compare to.

Now, if a source had been supplied for the November date, especially one giving the original form of the date found, this may be an resolvable problem. But there was not, and there is not one date that we can pick out with confidence. My guess based on observations of William C. Folger's records for other individuals, purely speculative, is that the original date said 9th month of 1706, which meant November in 1706. WCF probably converted this to 11th month of 1706 since he seemed to like to use new style months in his private records. Other researchers came along, and someone interpreted the 9th month in the original records as September, not realizing it was old style month numbering. Somebody else probably interpreted WCF's 11th month as Jan 1706/07, since WCF didn't bother to note "N.S." as he should have. Hence, we have three interpretations of that same date, and I would guess November is the correct date. --Jrich 10:42, 30 November 2010 (EST)