Benjamin Morse, b. say 1639 (aged 37 in 1678 [EQC 7:157]). … The record for Benjamin very clearly reads "1620," but this must be wrong. If the clerk intended 1640, and the double-dating is resolved as 4 March 1640/1, then this would be less than two months before the birth of Sarah, which is impossible. Another possible resolution of this problem would be to assume that the clerk employed 1 March as the first day of the year and meant to write "1640," intending a birthdate of 4 March 1639/40, but this is far from certain, and still leaves only a year before the birth of Benjamin's next sibling. Benjamin's age was given as 37 in 1678 [EQC 7:157], but this conflicts with the birth record for his sister Sarah. The arrangement of these three records would seem to imply that Benjamin was the next older sibling to Sarah, and so, rather than attempt to guess what the clerk might have intended to write, we have assigned to Benjamin a "say" date of 1639. (In his copy made about 1690, Henry Short entered the date as 27 March 1641, but this too cannot be correct.)
