Person talk:Mary Eldred (6)

Overlapping marriages - maybe not the same person [30 August 2010]

I merged a Mary Eldred married to a Benoni Gardiner/Gardner with a Mary Unknown married to a Benoni Gardiner/Gardner, based on a child sharing parents. Now this Mary Eldred is showing with two different husbands with children spanning the same time frame. I don't think this is a direct result of the merge I did - I think the problem existed before the merge, from my interpretation of the history of the records.

It could be that this is two different Mary's (with or without the same surname, since the surname does not seem to be certain). Or it could be that some of the birth years are incorrect. I suspect the former, if the death years of the husbands are correct. Hopefully someone else can straighten this out, as this is not my family. I did the merge to fix duplicates, and as I said, I believe that the problem pre-existed the merge I did. (If not, my apologies). --DataAnalyst 23:37, 29 August 2010 (EDT)

I think it would be better to have left the spouse of Benoni Gardiner as "Mary unknown" since the references cited for Mary Eldred are secondary and present no arguments in favor of the conclusion. I agree that Davis is a better source than the Hunt typescript, but neither source convinced me of the identity of Mary's surname when I was compiling my genealogy 20 years ago. Austin's Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island, page 81 says that Benoni's wife, Mary (__) Gardiner "died at her son-in-law, Job Sherman, at Portsmouth," 16 Nov 1729. The date of death for Mary Eldred is the same as listed in Arnold Vital Records of Rhode Island, for Mary Helme, wife of Rouse.

I suggest using extreme care in trying to correct entries for families with whom you are unfamiliar. I have reversed the merger and look forward to someone presenting solid arguments for the identity of Mary, wife of Benoni Gardiner, with her correct date of death.--Bill Wright 11:25, 30 August 2010 (EDT)