| Notes |
- Both Conklin Mann ("The Family of Conckelyne, Conklin and Conkling in America", TAG 21:48, 21:133, 1944, on page 145) and Donald Lines Jacobus ("Barnes Families of Eastern Long Island and Branford, Conn.", NEHGR 12:182, 1970, on page 189) wrote that this Hannah Conkling, the wife of Capt. Isaac Barnes b. 1705, was born in 1715 and died on 27 Aug 1749. Which, if true, would mean that Hannah (Conkling) Barnes could not be the mother of Capt. Jonathan Barnes who was born in 1752, as stated in East Hampton History: Including Genealogies of Early Families by Jeannette Edwards Rattray and other sources. East Hampton History says that this Hannah Conkling, second wife of Isaac Barnes b. 1705, daughter of Ananias Conkling and Harriet Ludlow, was born in 1715 and died, not in 1749, but in 1803.
It seems evident that despite East Hampton History's (earned) reputation for a certain amount of error, and Jacobus's (earned) status as one of the greatest genealogists of the twentieth century, East Hampton History is correct and Donald Lines Jacobus and Conklin Mann are wrong. The key lies on page 498 of Journal of the Trustees of the Freeholders and Commonalty of East Hampton Town 1772-1807, published by the town in 1927, in the section "Addendum: Genealogy", which begins on page 497 and describes itself as "taken from many sources, Hedges' and Howells' histories; Mather's L. I. Refugees; the family genealogies of East Hampton people, and is checked up with Town Records, Church Records, and inscriptions from Hampton tombstones." The pertinent passage reads:
"Isaac2, born about 1675; married April 19, 1704, Anna, daughter of Noah and Elizabeth (Taintor) Rogers. She was born April 14, 1675; died Aug. 27, 1749, 'aged about 70 years.' Among his children were: Capt. Isaac3, born Jan. 29, 1705; married (1) June 7, 1725, Sarah (baptized April 21, 1700; died Oct. 22, 1736), daughter of David Conkling, married (2) March 7, 1737, Hannah, daughter of Ananias and Hannah (Ludlow) Conkling; died April 22 1772. She was born Oct. 21, 1715, baptized Dec. 11, 1715, died March 9, 1803." [Emphases ours.]
As further proof that this Hannah (Conkling) Barnes died 9 Mar 1803, not 27 Aug 1749, a Find a Grave page exists for Hannah Conklin Barnes, showing her born 25 Oct 1715 and dying 9 Mar 1803. Two photographs are shown of her gravestone at Amagansett Cemetery, badly eroded over the years but still readable enough that one can make out "Memory of Hannah Relict of Isaac Barnes who died March 9, 1803, AE 87". Age 87 in March 1803 is fully consonant with a birth in October 1715.
So what it looks like is that both Conklin Mann and, later, Donald Lines Jacobus simply mixed up a "Hannah Barnes" in one generation with another "Hannah Barnes" in the next, accidentally giving the death date of this Hannah Barnes's mother-in-law Anna (Rogers) Barnes to this Hannah (Conkling) Barnes. Conkling Mann's article does not mention Anna (Rogers) Barnes at all, being entirely focussed on the direct Conkling line. Jacobus does cover her, saying of her death that "[s]he was born about 1682, and died before 1767; possible she was the Hannah Barnes who died 13 Feb. 1741/2 aged 'between 60 and 70.'" Which range does indeed encompass the actual 27 Aug 1749 death date of Anna (Rogers) Barnes.
Normally one would speculate that Jacobus picked up the error from Mann, but in fact Jacobus's lifetime approach was to check primary sources whenever possible. So one suspects that what happened to both genealogists was a simple, understandable slip in interpreting a record that referred only to Hannah or Anna Barnes.
|
Nielsen Hayden genealogy
1715 - 1803 (87 years)
d. 1 Mar 1740, Amagansett, Suffolk, Long Island, New York