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Saturday, October 17, 2015

52 ANCESTORS IN 52 WEEKS 2015 WEEK 38: THE DEBORAH STEVENS CONUNDRUM

One of the reasons I like the 52 ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge is it's a way to go back
through all my ancestors and recheck the information I have on them in my database. Most
of the time the dates and names are confirmed. Occasionally, I find something that needs to
be more closely reexamined and if need be, corrected. Such is the case with my 8x great
grandfather John Stevens' wife.

You see,  I thought she was Elizabeth Hildreth, who is listed in the Chelmsford Vital Records as marrying John Stephens on 15Dec 1664. Their daughter Deborah married Joseph Wright and  is my 7x great grandmother. or so I believed.. But recently I've seen claims that her parents were John Stevens and Hannah Barnard of  Andover, and another that they were John Stevens and Sarah Snow of Chelmsford.

Now, the two new sets of parents have problems.

While John Stevens and Sarah Snow were from Chelmsford, their daughter Deborah was born
in 1698, much too late to have been the Deborah Stevens who married Joseph Wright in 1697.

And I can't find any record of John Stevens and Hannah Barnard of Andover having a daughter
named Deborah.

On the other hand, I can't find a birth record for Deborah Stevens, daighter of John and Elizabeth Stevens in the Chelmsford Vital recocds.

This might take some time to straighten out. For now, it's a conundrum.

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