Person:Bethiah Stearns (1)

Name	Bethiah Stearns
Gender	Female
Birth^[1]	6 Oct 1735	Framingham, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States
Marriage	Bef 1758	probably Framingham, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United StatesBased on birth of eldest known child to Thomas Nickson
Death^[2]	19 Mar 1823	Southborough, Worcester, Massachusetts, United States

References

↑ Baldwin, Thomas W. Vital Records of Framingham, Massachusetts, to the Year 1850. (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1911)
p. 182.

STEARNS, Bethia, d. of Timothy and Bethia, [born] Oct. 6, 1735.
↑ Southborough, Worcester, Massachusetts, United States. Vital Records of Southborough, Massachusetts, to the End of the Year 1849. (Worcester, Massachusetts: Franklin P. Rice, 1903)
p. 178.

NIXON, Widow Bethiah, [died] March 19, 1823, a. 87. GR
[Birth about 1736.]
[[Source:Bond, Henry. Family Memorials. Genealogies of the Families and Descendants of the Early Settlers of Watertown, Massachusetts, Including Waltham and Weston (1855)|Bond], p. 464, gives Thomas Nixon and Bethia Stearns a daughter Behtia, "d. in Southboro, Mar. 19, 1723". First, the daughter of a mother b. 1735 could not die before her mother was born. So we can see that this date is clearly a typo for 19 Mar 1823, the date found in the cited Southborough death record. But then the use of the label "Widow" (not the daughter, if still named Nixon, probably never married) and the age, both show the death record clearly applies, not to a daughter, but to the mother herself. Thus are fictitous people created by the old genealogies!