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Archiver > NYWESTCH > 2002-03 > 1016472762


From: Kay Allen AG <>
Subject: Re: [NYWestch] Re: NYWESTCH-D Digest V02 #54
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2002 09:37:20 -0800
References: <69.23d511a1.29c77558@aol.com>


First, the parish registers for Upway, don't begin until 1654, only three years
before Simon's death. Another giveaway that the information is false is that the
dates are given for births and deaths, not baptisms and burials. In Church of
England parish registers, you will find baptizata and sepulta, which is to say
baptisms and burials. You just do not find birth and death records per se.

Besides, this information from Cornelius Haight, have you found any other
evidence for a contemporary Simon Hoyt. Does the IGI give an extraction for a
Dorset parish which gives another Simon Hoyt or variant? Has any one published
anything which would indicate the presence for another Simon? Are there any New
England records which might indicate the presence of a second Simon Hoyt ? I am
also including the various variants of Hoyt. I haven't seen anything. And since
Robert Charles Anderson and the Sanborns made meticulous searches of all extant
NE records and didn't mention another Simon Hoyt or variant thereof, I think
that it is extremely unlikely that there is a second Simon Hoyt.

Perhaps the word fraud is a tad strong. But the person who originally provided
this information to Cornelius [or to his informants] had to know that the
information is wrong and quite possibly was the fabricator of the material.
Gustave Anjou and Horatio Gates Somersby, amongst others, who were active in the
late 19th and early 20th centuries as practicing genealogists were only too
happy to accomodate their "paying" [$7,000 to $20,000] by creating information.

And yes, if the information is alleged to come from an extant Upway parish
register, and such do not exist and have not existed before 1654, then that is
internal evidence of a hoax or of a fraud. This is also indicated by the
internal evidence of the presentation of the dates as births and deaths, rather
than as baptisms and burials. It shows that someone not knowledgeable in the
realities of Church of England record keeping created this information and
directly or indirectly provided it to Cornelius.

Cornelius may not have been the perpetrator, but one of his informants, or even
one of his informants' informants, most assuredly was.

I hope this is satisfactory.

Kay Allen AG

wrote:

> The information which you claim "is inaccurate, wrong, whatever," came from
> the parish church of Upway, England, by way of Cornelius Haight of Fishkill,
> Dutchess County, N.Y. It was published in THE LYON FAMILY OF NEW YORK, 1907,
> edited by Robert B. Miller of Brooklyn, and A. B. Lyons, M.D., of Detroit.
> Far be it from me to reject the information provided by an Accredited
> Genealogist such as yourself. Au contrare. I accept that I am descended from
> the Simon Hoyt you cite. However, how is Cornelius Haight's story disproven?
> There are many instances of a name appearing in our history which belonged to
> more than one person. Sometimes they were related, such as father and son,
> uncle and nephew, or cousins. Sometimes not. I merely raise the question of
> the possibility that there were two Simon Hoyts.
> The fact that the parish church in Upway didn't keep records before 1654
> is interesting, but it doesn't prove anything. I feel especially bad that the
> word "fraud" has reared its head in this discussion. A fraud is someone who
> knows he/she is a fraud and publishes the fraudulent story anyway. Many
> people really believe that their story is true and so they are inaccurate but
> innocent.
> Am I kvetching? If so, my apologies.
>
> Barbara in Massachusetts
>
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