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Subject: [SILVIUS] The strange case of Maria Catherine ("Best")Silvius wife of #12
Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 18:05:59 EST


Last year we mentioned Sherlock Holmes telling his faithful sidekick, Mr.
Watson that often the key to a case may be the dog that doesn't bark.

Our days have been filled with records that don’t mention Maria Catherine
BEST when they should mention her, family histories that don't mention or
prove her parentage, cyber claims that are not worth the bandwidth required
to download them.

What are the silent sentinels in the case of Maria Catherine “Best”?
The will of her supposed father William does not mention her. True, the
middle children are not named but there is nothing in the record to indicate
any propinquity between William Best and Maria Catherine Silvius.

Another sentinel is the fact that Maria Catherine has none of the Best family
as sponsors in the baptisms of her children. None of them have her as their
sponsor either.

The usual practice in German families was to name the third son after the
mother’s father, and yet I see no William among the children of Maria
Catherine and Nicholas. ( I see Henry and Jonas and Nicholas. )

The accepted theory when traced back is based solely on the memory of
someone’s grandmother long after the time when William Best would have been
in the memory of the living. The person who put forth this theory has been
found to have numerous errors in other research which is a muffled omen. We
have ignored all these things at our own peril.

It is time to erase the board and start over in proving the parentage of
Maria Catherine Silvius. Perhaps by the process of elimination we can find
where she truly fits. This is made more difficult by the fact that her grave
is gone and it might have shed light on the exact date of her birth. Also
the fact that she is a female makes the task even more daunting.

Several people joined the DAR based on Nicholas’s service and added her
maiden name in as a collateral item, not necessarily researched or deemed
necessary to membership, and these same people included another erroneous
maiden name in the maternal line of Elizabeth Sober, so this is a wordless
warning that we have tended to ignore.

It is painful to give up a gr gr gr gr grandparent and try to be “adopted”
by someone else, but it is far better than building our house on an unsure
foundation.
If we ignore all these discrepancies (silent dogs), this will carry a whole
cacophony of sounds, causing others to doubt our scholarship in other areas.
At least that's the way I see it. Judy


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