Family talk:David Packer and Rebeckah Nichols (1)

identity of wife [13 June 2014]

Clearly the Rebecca Nichols b. 1761 did not marry Daniel Pecker. Besides having to live to 107, and besides this birth being no where near what is on the Find A Grave memorial (1778), there is a death record for her, and her parents had a second daughter named Rebecca born in 1780.

Answering the question for her namesake born in 1780 is harder, but she probably did not either.

There are two marriages in Haverhill in 1799 for women named Rebecca Nichols. One to Daniel Pecker, and one to Humphrey Chase. A Rebecca, w/o Humphrey Chase, d. in Lynn in Apr 1848, a. 67, which is how old the daughter of Phineas Nichols would be on that date, four months before her 68th birthday. Some DAR lineages seem to agree that Humphrey Chase's wife was the daughter of Phineas Nichols. These are not conclusive items but definitely suggestive that it was not the daughter of Phineas that married David Pecker.

The monument pictured at Find A Grave did not earn itself much credibility with David's birth considering it offered a date that conflicts with Samuel and is over 2 years before the recorded baptism (not to mention that both David and Rebecca just happened to be born on the first day of the month), so it is hard to give it much credibility about Rebecca's.

The 1850 census show David age 74, Rebecca age 71, so born roughly 1776, 1779 respectively. I haven't located a 1860 entry yet. It may be difficult to identify her. A search of americanancestors's database for Rebecca Nichols born in the right time period only returns the daughter of Phineas - and yet there are two Rebecca Nichols that got married a month apart. --Jrich 23:33, 13 June 2014 (UTC)