Person talk:Mary French (35)

Two Mary French's [21 July 2010]

There are two Mary Frenches, one is the daughter of John French and Mary Noyes, while the other is the daughter of John French and Phebe Keyes. This page is the first one, but it is the second one that married Stephen Pearson. Source:Essex Institute Historical Collections (Essex Institute Press), p. 44:352 (view here), quotes and cites an agreement dividing the estate of John French of Topsfield (the one who married Phebe Keyes) and names as one of the parties "Mary Pearson Widow".

This is an understandable confusion, but regarding the statement on this page, "Seems to be been two Stephen Pearsons who married Mary Frenchs, both father and son, from the dates in the IGI", there are two observations:

1. I don't see that the records concerning the apparently younger Stephen Pearson identifies him as the son of the other, but if it does, it is wrong, since Stephen Pearson the son m. Hannah Jewett in 1711. Further, since it gives the marriage date of 1696, how could it be a son of the Stephen who married in 1684? It is either a mistake or a different Stephen Pearson.
2. When the IGI record is labelled "Form submitted by a member of the LDS Church.", they are essentially as reliable as an AFN, meaning not at all. No proof is required to submit these records and no quality control is applied, so this is essentially just like an Internet family tree; somebody's research of unknown quality. Witness the fact that half the IGI records for Stephen Pearson and Mary French have no marriage date or a wrong date, even though the published vital record of this marriage is available for viewing on the Internet (for free) to anybody that takes the mere 5 minutes of searching that it takes to find it. --Jrich 12:14, 21 July 2010 (EDT)

I have fixed the incorrect marriage based on the source cited above. --Jrich 12:30, 21 July 2010 (EDT)