Person talk:Rebecca Gary (2)

Death date [9 September 2010]

The death date shown on this page was "19 FEB 1678" with no source given. Note that this death date is entirely in keeping with Source:Brainerd, Lawrence. Gary Genealogy : The Descendants of Arthur Gary of Roxbury, Massachusetts, with an Account of the Posterity of Stephen Gary of, p. 36 (Rebecca, b. 25 Jan 1668/9, d. of smallpox 19 Feb 1678/9), but appears wrong for the following reason. There are two deaths for a Rebecca Gery recorded in VR Roxbury, p. 2:532:

• Gery, Rebecah, Feb. 19, 1678.
• Gery, Rebeccah, d. Nathaniel, bur. Feb. 3, 1676.

It is in trying to justify these two records that makes the above date appear incorrectly applied to this page.

According to Brainerd, immigrant Arthur Gary had three sons, of whom, only Nathaniel had children. Arthur's will mentions no daughters, only these three sons. His wife's name is Frances. Son William m. Hannah Curtis, then Elizabeth Parker. Son Samuel m. a different Elizabeth Parker, then Martha Clark. Nathaniel, of course, m. Ann. So there is no sign of any other Rebecca Gary, besides Nathaniel's daughter, to account for the second death record.

It seems unlikely that one record is simply a misrecording of the year, because a burial 3 Feb is not compatible with a death 19 Feb, even if both were meant to indicate the same year. It would require two distinct errors to make these records work as two expressions of one event. The only simple (i.e., single) error to explain these two records would be if the name Rebecca was what was wrong in one of them.

So at this point, it becomes very interesting to note, that VR Roxbury says that Nathaniel's infant daughter Dorcas was buried 21 Feb 1678/9, which would be entirely compatible with the above death record of 19 Feb 1678/79. (It might be conceivable that Nathaniel's first daughter Rebecca d. 1676, and that he had a second daughter, also given the name Rebecca, who is the one that died in 1678/9 when smallpox ravaged this family. But no such birth is recorded, and as a daughter named Deborah was born in 1676, and there is need to allow for the birth of Dorcas who is called an infant in her 1678/79 burial record, it does not seem possible to also squeeze in the birth of any such second Rebecca.}

Since the 1676 death explicitly identifies that Rebecca as the daughter of Nathaniel, I am changing the death date on this page to the 1676 date. Attribution of the 1678 death probably requires more evidence, though the proposed Rebecca/Dorcas confusion seems the most likely explanation for this mess. --Jrich 12:04, 9 September 2010 (EDT)

Jrich has provided a coherent discussion of the incoherent records surrounding the family of Nathaniel Gary/Geary of Roxbury. Fortunately, the incoherence seems to apply more to the children who died young and, therefore, is of little genealogical significance. One of the points to be made here is that, in general, the early town records of Roxbury seem to be less reliable than the chronologically arranged records of the First Congregational Society (which eventually evolved into the First Unitarian Society) of Roxbury. Those of us with the souls of accountants would obviously prefer to have all the documentation fit together; in reality, if we can attach the right spouses and children to the right individuals, we have often arrived at the best achievable result.--jaques1724 05:25, 7 December 2013 (UTC)