Person talk:Elizabeth Randall (23)

Conflicting marriages [5 August 2011]

Source:Eddy, Ruth Story Devereux. Eddy Family in America says Eleazer Eddy m. 27 Mar 1701 Elizabeth Randall and married (2) 6 Jul 1722/23 Elizabeth Cobb. Both marriages are listed in the Taunton VRs.

This is clearly incompatible with the marriage, also given on this page, to William Macomber 9 Mar 1697 of Elizabeth --- (according to Dartmouth records), and births of their children Matthew 1698, Joseph 1700, William 1702, Hannah 1703, Elizabeth 1705, Samuel, 1707, Sarah 1709, Timothy 1711, Ruth 1714, Margaret 1720.

Unfortunately, Source:Randall, Frank Alfred. Randall and Allied Families : William Randall (1609-1693) of Scituate and His Descendants, with Ancestral Families, p. 24, which one might hope would sort this out, only says that Elizabeth Randall, d/o Joseph Randall and Hannah Macomber, was b. 3 Jul 1673, and gives no marriage or other details. It does not mention William Macomber or Eleazer Eddy.

Source:Stackpole, Everett Schermerhorn. Macomber Genealogy, p. 93, reports that the will of Joseph Randall of Scituate, dated 17 Nov 1720, proved 17 Mar 1720/21 names his daughter Elizabeth Macomber. And that a deed dated 10 May 1722, "William Macomber of Dartmouth and Elizabeth his wife" sold land "given to my wife Elizabeth by her Hon'd Father Joseph Randall".

So this Elizabeth Randall was the one who married William Macomber, not the one who married Eleazer Eddy. --Jrich 20:03, 4 August 2011 (EDT)

According to these website, she was the same person...

http://www.gwgbowen.com/index.php/Elizabeth_Mary_Randall_%28b_1673%29

http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=timmychew&id=I204236

http://hindskw.com/KennethHinds/3684.html

http://www.generationsgoneby.com/familygroup.php?familyID=F17845&tree=1

http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/m/e/t/Lynette--Metzer/WEBSITE-0001/UHP-0047.html

http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/m/e/t/Lynette--Metzer/WEBSITE-0001/UHP-0055.html

The last two websites of the last group switches the marriage dates of Elizabeth Randall and Elizabeth Cobb as wives of Eleazer Eddy, while other websites of the first group still make claim that William Macumber was another husband of Elizabeth Randall aside to Eleazer.

All of this confusion between documented and non-documented claims has me wondering if some of these individuals were committing infidelity or multiple marriages. Just because these acts might have been rare or perhaps even illegal, is not necessarily enough to rule them out without concrete evidence - which I'm not convinced has been found. Furthermore, I realize the contradiction this carries towards the wills made by Joseph Randall and William Macumber. However, it is plausible to a small degree that they may not have known of Elizabeth Randall's relationship with Eleazer, assuming that infidelity is at play and secrecy was in practice. Yet, they may have. Another speculation is her status as a "(twin)," which I've noticed in the last website of the first group as well as in one of the references made under Elizabeth (Randall) Macumber's profile at werelate.com. However, I find it difficult to believe that Joseph and Hannah would've named their twin daughters, assuming it's the case, with the same names. I've also tried to see what other Elizabeth Randall's may have existed in the region at the time. Of course, this becomes a problem in itself, because the probability of two Elizabeth Randall's born on the same 3 July 1673, or just 1673, in a region that has a moderate colonial population is highly unlikely. Though some of these speculations may seem silly, it's the only way, as of yet, that I can draw any sense out of the circumstances. I do realize one stipulation towards my first speculation; bearing that many children has quite a negative affect on ones health. However, she did die in 1723 at age 50. Please let me know your thoughts around these ideas.--Jlbailey01 01:46, 5 August 2011 (EDT)

There are sources of varying quality, and as a general rule, websites are the worst. There are some good websites, but unfortunately the Internet has made it too easy for people to publish hastily collected data, speculation without proof, and other such practices that tend to lead people to have errors in their work, and the sheer volume of such bad websites almost overwhelms good websites.

One of the symptoms of good websites is their citation of sources, but if they simply cite other websites, they are not improving themselves, they are just kicking the can down the road. So the sources that are cited need to be primary documents, documents written by people with first hand knowledge. If you look at the information presented in the Macomber generalogy described above, it consists of the will of Elizabeth's father and a deed written by William Macomber and Elizabeth herself, so both sources were written by people who would certainly know who she married and no number of website authors saying differently changes the facts. Unless they can find other primary documents identifying her parents and husband otherwise, they simply become wrong.

The identification of Elizabeth as a twin comes from the vital records, ie, the town records of births, deaths and marriage kept by the town clerk in 1673, as required by law in Massachusetts starting around 1650. A published version of the vital records are available on-line here (Elizabeth is p. 306, her twin Ursula is listed on p. 308). These were collected by the town clerk based on information undoubtedly provided by the parents, probably very soon after the actual birth date, and generally are very reliable. To get more reliable, one could order microfilms of the original hand written records, but I haven't seen any evidence to suggest they are wrong.

The dates of the marriages of Eleazer Eddy and William Macomber overlap, and it is clearly indicated that two different Elizabeth Randalls are involved. Colonial (Puritan) culture was very rigid about marriage and there was very little wild behavior, and what did exist, was almost always documented by court records. So suggestions of divorce, bigamy, or any other non-typical behavior, like other facts, must be proven by reference to court documents, or other sources that were written contemporaneously.

Since William Macomber's wife was the daughter of Joseph Randall, that means that the parentage of the other Elizabeth Randall, wife of Eleazer Eddy, is simply not known at this time. People don't like not knowing the answer, and have a tendency to fill in any answer, which is one of the reasons why it is so easy to find websites with the wrong answer. But saying something is so, does not make it so. It requires proof, in the form of primary documents. --Jrich 09:43, 5 August 2011 (EDT)