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Archiver > CARPENTER > 2001-08 > 0997228746
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Subject: [CARPENTER] Re: CARPENTER-D Digest V01 #144, message #5
Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 19:59:06 EDT
Jerry,
While you're hardly the first person to rely heavily on Amos B. Carpenter's
work, I would urge you (and others) to use secondary sources such as his THE
REHOBOTH BRANCH OF THE CARPENTER FAMILY--which has been repeatedly found to
be full of inaccuracies, distortions, and even misrepresentations--as but a
starting place. There's no substitute for primary research. In the case of
Abiah's descendants, you'll recall from my previous message that the de
Forests found "so many obvious inaccuracies and contradictions" in A. B.
Carpenter's material that they used other sources entirely.
<< Thomas Carpenter and Elizabeth Page had 8 children according to my
records, but the one in my line is Nicholas, born 1739. He moved to
Somersworth, NH with the family (or Nicholas, his son moved there and took
Dad with him, it is not clear when). >>
The migration you describe could explain why the de Forests (JAMES COX BRADY
AND HIS ANCESTRY) found only three children recorded for Thomas and
Elizabeth: Thomas, Mary, and Elizabeth, all b. West Greenwich. How, though,
do you reconcile the 1739 birth year you have for Nicholas with the birth
dates of the aforementioned Thomas (3 Aug. 1738), Mary (17 Oct. 1740), and
Elizabeth (4 Sept. 1742)? If Nicholas was a sibling of these three, he
couldn't have been born any earlier than 1743, more likely 1744.
<< I have no support other than ABC book for the fact that Thomas was one of
Oliver and Elizabeth's 8 children. I would appreciate any more info on this
line. >>
Unless I missed something, that's also your only source for Nicholas's being
a son of Thomas and Elizabeth. Do you have at least circumstantial evidence,
such as Thomas's sale of his West Greenwich (and/or other R.I.) lands and,
about the same time, the purchase of land at Somersworth, N.H., by someone of
the same name? Is there a record of Nicholas at West Greenwich or vicinity?
Is there a Thomas among the eight children you have for Nicholas?
As for Thomas's being one of Oliver's children (11 in all, according to the
de Forests, pp.136-40), an abstract of the latter's will (the will was filed
at North Kingstown in late 1727) establishes that he had a son of that name:
"a farm at East Greenwich to his son Thomas" (BRADY, 136). The conclusion
that Thomas of West Greenwich (where his aforementioned three children's
births are recorded) is that same person may derive from a deed of sale,
describing land left him by his father (mentioned by name) or made to someone
identified as a sibling and known independently to have been a child of
Oliver's. Or it may result from a process of elimination, in which it was
establishing that no other Thomas Carpenters of suitable age lived in the
vicinity at the time. You'll have to check the records and see what you find.
Until you resolve these matters, it's premature to say that your Carpenter
ancestry is through Abiah.
Gene Z.
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