Hey genea-folks,
it's Saturday Night again,
time for more Genealogy Fun!
Your mission this week, should you decide to accept it, is to:
1) The Family History Hound listed 20 Questions about your Ancestor, and I'm going to use some of them in the next few months.
2) Please answer the question - "Which ancestor gives you the most researching grief?"
3) Write your own blog post, make a comment on this post, or post your answer on Facebook or Google+. Please leave a link to your answer in comments on this post.
My response:
It has to be my 3rd great-grandfather, Thomas J. Newton (ca 1795 - ca 1840). He may have been born in Maine, according to the marriage and death records of his children. The date and location of his death are unknown.
He is listed as the father of my 2nd great-grandmother Sophia (Newton) Hildreth (1835-1923) and her brother Thomas J. Newton (1835-1915). His wife was my 3rd great-grandmother, Sophia (Buck) (Brigham) (Newton) Stone (1797-1882). They may have married after Sophia (Buck) Brigham's first husband, Lambert Brigham (by whom she had two sons), died in May 1834 in Westborough, Mass. The birthplaces of the two children are listed in marriage and death records as Cambridge, Vermont or Springfield, Vermont.
I have found exactly ONE record that I am confident applies to this Thomas J. Newton. It is a Westborough town list of "Account of Town Orders from Select Men of Westboro drawn for the support of Town Paupers for whom Cash was drawn from Town Treasury by Caleb W. Forbush Town Treasurer" included Thomas J. Newton, who drew $32.59 on 3 December 1832."
So I'm looking for records in Maine, Massachusetts and Vermont.
There is a Thomas J. Newton (1808-1852), son of Caleb and Fanny (Park) Newton, born in Oxford, Maine, who married Eliza Coffin in 1843 in Dedham, Mass.,, and had a son Thomas J. Newton (1848-1849) and a daughter Cardelia Newton (1844-1845). His death record in Reading, Mass. identifies his parents names. Would a man name two sons Thomas J. Newton? Maybe. Would a man born in 1808 marry a woman born in 1797 with two children in 1834 (his age 26, her age 37)? Maybe.
I have researched the Newton families of Windsor and Lamoille Counties of Vermont, and there are some candidate parents and siblings for a Newton born around 1800. But there are no smoking guns in the records. There are no known birth records for my Sophia Newton or her brother Thomas J. Newton in Vermont.
The bigger issue may be "Was Sophia (Newton) Hildreth (1834-1923) really the daughter of Thomas J. Newton?" Sophia (Buck) Brigham's husband died in May 1834, and Sophia (Newton) Hildreth was born in September 1834. Did Thomas J. Newton sweep the grieving and pregnant widow Sophia (Buck) Brigham off her feet, marry her, and take her to Cambridge, Vermont to have her baby?
The last time I wrote about this research problem was in Who Really Was the Father of Sophia Newton (183?-1923)? (posted 12 May 2014).
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