Person talk:Jonathon Higgins (1)

death date [13 April 2019]

Removed death date of 2 Nov 1754 in Eastham.

No sources were given.

Further, no record is found after checking americanancestors.org, familysearch.org or Mayflower Descendant (which published vital records and much material related to the purported death location of Eastham). In addition, Jonathan is mentioned in Mayflower Families through 5 generations (a respected source), Vol. 19, p. 23, which says he died bet. 2 Nov 1753 and June 1754, making this death date actually incorrect.

It is easy to see what happened: Someone put he died AFTER 2 Nov 1753 because we know he signed a deed on that date, somebody copied it leaving off the AFTER because they don't understand what a critical difference that qualifier makes, and then somebody mis-copied it making 1753 into 1754. Or something like that. These are not people we can trust to give us good genealogical data...

To us moderns, whether Jonathan died 1753 or 1754 is not important. What is important is that we know it is true. It should be even more important for a descendant to know they have it right. And that means the source is what is important. Without a source, you can post all the dates you like and you have given us nothing. They don't matter. The source matters. That is how you can assess the likelihood it is true.

Since the poster clearly didn't live in 1753 or 1754, they must be copying a source, so surely they can provide the source of the information. If not, they should refrain from posting their data as it adds nothing because nobody can trust it. In collaborative genealogy, when using some essentially anonymous person's data, we must be able to get to how the data is known and what exactly it is that is known. That requires knowing the source. --Jrich 00:33, 14 April 2019 (UTC)