Thursday, August 25, 2022

Rabbit Holes With Randy - Which Mary Buck is Rebecca's Ancestor?

 I haven't been down many rabbit holes in the last three months, but this one was a deep one.  And it still may be!

On the MyHeritage message system, I received this query from Rebecca:

"Hoping you can help. Trying to figure out if Mary Buck born 1728 and died before 1 May 1810 in Millbury, MA or the Mary Buck on your tree. The Mary Buck Case is married to Amos Case and have 10 children: Rachel, Sarah, Elijah, James, Judith, Molly, David, Samuel, John, and Amos."

I looked in my RootsMagic family tree and saw that I had four Mary Buck persons:

*  Mary Buck (1724-1741), the daughter of Ebenezer and Judith (Weed) of Haverhill, Massachusetts.  This Mary Buck married Nathaniel Green (1720-1810) in 1741 in Haverhill.

*  Mary Buck (1725-????), daughter of Isaac and Mary (Merritt) Buck of Scituate, Massachusetts.  No known marriage.

*  Mary Buck (1730-1810), daughter of Samuel and Sarah (Walker) Buck of Woburn, Massachusetts.  Is this the wife of Amos Case?

*  Mary Buck (1736-????), born in Wilmington, Massachusetts, the daughter of Ephraim and Mary (Wood) Buck of Wilmington.  No known marriage.

Of course, there may be another Mary Buck born in this time frame that married Amos Case.  I think that the Mary Buck (1730-1810) is the wife of Amos Case.  

I also had Amos Case (1726-1796), Mary's husband, in my database married in about 1748 to Mary Buck (1730-1810).  They had children born between 1750 and 1768, all born in Sutton, Massachusetts.  Amos and Mary (Buck) Case died in Millbury, Massachusetts and are buried there.

In my database, I had Mary Buck (1730-1810), born 3 August 1730 in Woburn, Massachusetts, as the daughter of  Samuel Buck and Sarah Walker, married in 1721 in Woburn.  How could I prove that?  I need more evidence.  

Sarah Walker was born in 1689 in Woburn, the daughter of Samuel and Judith (Howard) Walker.  Sarah died in 1742 in Woburn.  Therefore Samuel Buck should be born between, say 1680 and 1695.

I have two Samuel Buck persons in my database born between 1680 and 1695:  

*  Samuel Buck (1682-1730), born in Woburn, Massachusetts, son of Ephraim and Sarah (Brooks) of Woburn.  Samuel Buck married Abigail Wyman (1691-1720) in Woburn, and had five children recorded between 1710 and 1719 in Woburn.  Samuel may have married again to Sarah Walker.  There is a Find A Grave memorial and death records for both Samuel and Abigail (Wyman) Buck in Woburn, Abigail in 1720 and Samuel in 1730.

*  Samuel Buck (1686-1778), born in Woburn, son of Samuel and Rachel (Levens) Buck of Woburn.  Samuel Buck married in about 1709 to Hannah Fowle (1690-1720), and they had four children between between 1710 and 1719 recorded in Woburn.  There is a Find A Grave memorial and death record for this Samuel Buck, so it is not this Samuel Buck the father of Mary Buck.

Of course, there may be another Samuel Buck in this time frame who may be the father of Mary Buck.

I thought that the only way to solve this problem was to find a land or probate record for a Samuel Buck that named a daughter Mary Case.  I searched the American Ancestors probate records for a Samuel Buck born between 1720 and 1820 in Massachusetts, and I got lucky.  There were only two probate records for a Samuel Buck in this time frame.

*  Case 8,691, of Sutton in Worcester County, who wrote his will in 1760, which was proved on 23 June 1761.  The will bequeathed to his wife Elizabeth, son Samuel Buck, and daughters Hannah Walker and Mary Case.  This is obviously the Samuel Buck I've been looking for, and he is not one of the two Samuel Bucks noted above.

*  Case 8,692, of Sutton in Worcester County, who wrote his will in 1803, which was proved on 2 November 1803. The will bequeathed to his wife Sarah, son Jonathan, heirs of his son Samuel Buck, Jenny Williams (a Negro girl that still lived with him), daughter Lydia Chamberlain, and grandson David Buckman son of daughter Abigail).  This Samuel Buck is probably the one born in 1711 in Woburn, the son of Samuel and Hannah (Fowle) Buck, who married in 1754 to Sarah Cutting (1718-1802). 

The images of the will of Samuel Buck who died in Sutton in 1761 are (from Case 8,691 in Worcester County):

My best guess is that Samuel Buck, who died in 1761 in Sutton and left a will naming wife Elizabeth, daughter Hannah Walker, daughter Mary Case, and son Samuel Buck, is a previously unknown Samuel Buck who was born in the 1685-1700 time frame, married in 1721 to Sarah Walker probably in Woburn, Massachusetts.  They had at least eight children, apparently not all recorded in Woburn records.  

Who is Elizabeth Buck, the widow named in Samuel Buck's 1760 will?  Sarah (Walker) Buck died on 20 March 1742 in Sutton, Massachusetts.  A Samuel Buck married an Elizabeth (Dane) Blunt, widow of Samuel Blunt, on 27 April 1742 in Oxford, Massachusetts, also recorded in Sutton records.  This is the only record I've found for an Elizabeth who married a Samuel Buck in the Massachusetts vital records.  There may be other Elizabeth's that are unknown to me at this time.

Ah, the joys of same name, same place, and inconsistent vital records.  It is the challenge that many genealogists have.

Whew - that was a deep rabbit hole, and I'm not at all 100% sure that I have found the correct Samuel Buck who died in 1761, naming his wife Elizabeth and daughter Mary Case.  What I do know is that many of my earlier assumptions about spouses and children of the several Samuel Buck persons were incorrect, and the online family trees are not much help. 

I have spent many hours on this challenge, and have significantly modified my RootsMagic family tree to accommodate the available records.  Fortunately, these are not my ancestors, but it is important to get as much correct as we can.

Now I need some carrots and a nap.  

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