Person talk:Ebenezer Severance (2)

Please cite your sources [7 August 2022]

These pages show Ebenezer and his wife Anna both dying in 1717 in New Hampshire, yet all four of the children were born in Ipswich after this date. Clearly there is something wrong here.

There is a book shown by books.google.com, Source:Getchell, Sylvia Fitts. Fitts Families (Fitts, Fitz, Fittz) : a Genealogy, that may be helpful, but as it is too new to be out of copyright, and the contents are not visible and it is not located in a library any where close to me. However, the snippets that are visible claim that Ebenezer has a first wife Anna Credes or Creetes who was the one that died in 1716/7 in Kingston NH. It says Ebenezer was baptized as an adult in 1719 [the baptism on 3 Jan 1719/20 is also stated in Source:Essex Institute Historical Collections (Essex Institute Press), p. 16:291, "Records of the First Church at Salisbury, Mass., 1687-1754", no mention of a wife, though a daughter, Sarah, is baptized the same day (p. 16:155)], so clearly he lived past 1717. Given this tidbit, it is difficult to know if the book goes on to say that Ebenezer moved to Ipswich and married Anna Fitts as his second wife, or if the Ebenezer in Kingston was a different individual with the same name. It does show the 1694 birthdate, so presumably the first scenario is the one it advocates.

Source:Dewsnap, David C. Severance Genealogy seems to think that the 8 Jan 1716/17 date isn't a death date at all, but was the marriage date of Ebenezer and Anna Fitts, and argues that people suggesting a first wife named Anna Choate misread the record. [It is a little hard to imagine how Choate and Fitts could be mistaken for each other, dotted i's usually being fairly clear even in colonial writing. Choate and Credes is a likely confusion, both having the same general shape.] Dewsnap adds three children born between 1718 and 1721 (there are marriage records for all three in Ipswich: Margaret, Sarah and Abbey/Abraham lending this some credence) that would seem to suggest he had a living wife during this period, and maybe this interpretation is correct.

There is an Ebenezer Severance who was killed in Northfield by Indians in 1723. This is in Massachusetts very close to the Vermont/New Hampshire corner. But this Ebenezer clearly couldn't have been the father of the children in Ipswich all born 1723 and later, and he appears to have left his own children, including a son named Ebenezer b. 1709.

There is an Ephraim and Ebenezer Severance listed in the vital records of Kingston NH. They are a generation younger than this Ebenezer. But, these do not appear to be the children of this Ebenezer. The Ephraim of this Ebenezer married Abigail Trask. The Ephraim Severance of Kingston married a woman named Elizabeth Swett. The page in WeRelate on this family says they were married in 1749, while Ephraim and Abigail Trask married in 1748, and you show children born to Ephraim and Abigail in 1750 and 1751 showing it could not be a two marriages of a single man. Source:Ezra Scollay Stearns, William Frederick Whitcher, Edward Everett Parker. Genealogical and Family History of the State of New Hampshire, p. 2:527 says that the Ephraim of Kingston who married Elizabeth Swett is a son of this Ebenezer's brother Ephraim (i.e., son of Ephraim and Lydia), and since brother Ephraim had a son Ebenezer as well, that appears to account for the Ebenezer Severance found in the Kingston records who married Dorothy Eliot.

But, in summary, the data that has been posted here is blatantly contradictory. To figure out which data is wrong, sources need to be cited so the validity of the presented facts can be analyzed. This case seems particularly confusing with several cousins all named Ebenezer or Ephraim, and discrepant accounts, so it is all the more important for readers to know whether the facts presented are based on real contemporary evidence or just somebody's say-so. Taking the time to document where the data was found, and attempting to verify it against other sources, is a good way to keep from posting incorrect information. --Jrich 13:27, 21 January 2011 (EST)

I am removing the posted death data "Death? 1717 Kingston, Rockingham, New Hampshire, United States" based on the above arguments in order to resolve Data Quality Issues. Clearly the poster had 10 years to justify it with sources and did not. --Jrich 21:20, 7 August 2022 (UTC)