Person talk:John Chase (3)

1740 versus 1739/40 in sources [21 November 2017]

Double dating is sporadic in the printed Newbury VR as in Hoyt, as in Chase. The printing of a single date, when double dates would be appropriate, simply occurs too often and in many sources. With the supplemental information provide, like the age at death, the death year can be determined to be 1739/40 based on the information we have. As to the will proved date by Chase, printed as 17 Nov 1739. That is a bit more obscure. Holman states 1739/40 citing the same source as Chase. Chase is clearly some error, either due to haste and confusing the month of the inventory, or whatever and can be safely ignored since Holman agrees in part with Hoyt. Hoyt's leaves off the double date. Again, printing of double dates varies and is inconsistent. I believe we can accept 17 Mar 1739/40 as the will proved date.--Kpb2011 17:26, 29 November 2011 (EST)

When secondary sources disagree the only thing to do is ignore them all and go to the primary documents. Secondary sources saying the same thing are likely to have copied one from the other, so the number of secondary sources giving an answer doesn't matter.

The file is here and appears to be freely available, no membership to americanancestors.org required. The dates found on the documents in the file are given in the order they occur in the file. Years given as found in the original documents.

21 Mar 1740: appraisor John Carr sworn in

24 Mar 1740: Inventory taken, sworn to 7 Apr 1740

22 Oct 1730: Will written

17 Mar 1739: Will proved

17 Mar "1739 or 40": endorsement on back of will

The citation in Chase "24:89, 185" reflects the recorded version (as copied by court clerk into the record books). The will is here. It also says proved 17 Mar 1739. The inventory is here. It is dated 24 Mar 1740. Sworn to 7 Apr 1740.

For both the proved date and the inventory date, Chase appears to have printed Nov. when the actual date was March. No explanation, the writing is not bad. Perhaps he couldn't read his own notes? --Jrich 06:45, 22 November 2017 (UTC)