birth date [11 February 2012]
Vital Records of Chelsea, Mass to 1850, p. 319, gives baptism of Elizabeth Watts, d/o Richard and Mary on 23 Jan 1780. The Documentary History of Chelsea, p. 360 says the same thing. Is it possible that the birth date given by the cited sources meant 18 Jan 1780? I have no interest in this family, was just cleaning up a link to a bad place page and noticed it. --Jrich 17:44, 10 February 2012 (EST)
- Good catch! Thank you very much for finding this. I'll certainly look into it. --Pkeegstra 20:02, 10 February 2012 (EST)
- I reread that section of Whittier, and he expresses some hesitancy as to the certainty of his sources for Elizabeth Watts, so in the light of that, I think it would make sense to go with the earlier date. I see the Google Book Chelsea you cited above has some information for specifying Elizabeth's parents, too. That's great, since they're Kathy's direct line. Again, many thanks! --Pkeegstra 07:59, 11 February 2012 (EST)
- P.S. I see the source page for the Chelsea book is duplicated. I'll try to fix that. --Pkeegstra 08:16, 11 February 2012 (EST)
- The appendix has a listing of all the church baptisms, and Elizabeth's baptism is transcribed there on Volume 2, page 598 (the above is volume 1). And that might be her father's death recorded on p. 611. If you have access to americanancestors.org or go to a library with an institutional membership you can look up the vital records of Chelsea, the book being published by NEHGS and so their website has scanned images. They don't list a birth, just the baptism, so probably based on the same church record that is abstracted on p. 598, but they do have the marriage recorded on p. 434 of Richard Watts and Mary Watts on 24 Jun 1773 and probably other relevant records. Chamberlain's data seems to be based on these records, too, so generally seems reliable. --Jrich 09:52, 11 February 2012 (EST)
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