Re: Further speculation on Sarah SIAS

I agree that we still do not *know* who Sarah's parents are.I don't believe I ever said that her parentage was proven.

Tombstones are primary sources, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are totally dependable -- just as a death certificate is a primary source.But both suffer from having to depend on the knowledge of the informant for their accuracy.

As for Jane's birthdate, I don't know where the 1743 date came from, so I don't know whether the stone is a better source or a worse one.I will add the reading you gave to her family group sheet, so thank you for it.

As for my believing Sarah SIAS, w/o George W. SMITH, is most likely d/o James & Patience (DWIER) SIAS...

As far as I know, John & Sarah (KETTRIDGE) SIAS already had a daughter named Sarah, who was b. ca. 1802 and married John SMITH, so that rules them out as her parents.

As for my attaching so much importance to the geographical proximity of George & Sarah to James & Patience... experience.

By the time you've added 50,000 individuals to your database and published 4000 family group sheets to your web site, you start getting a feel for what is probable and what is not.And children live close to their parents far, far more often than they live close to their aunts and uncles.

As I said, I don't *know* who Sarah's parents are, but the hypothesis that she is the d/o James & Patience is the most likely one -- and at least it isn't impossible, as it was for her to be the daughter of Jane, whose biological clock ran out ca. 1790, not ca. 1800-05.

I don't believe a couple in their late 60s would adopt an infant, even if the courts would allow it.They had little prospect of living long enough to see her raised to maturity, even if they could have coped with doing so.By 1807/8, when Sarah was born, Samuel (their last and youngest) would have been 17 or 18 years old, soon to marry and leave home (as if a teenage boy would be any use caring for a baby).So it is not true that there were "children at home."I'm aware of family farm life and how easily an adopted child could fit in, but with a couple in their prime.Charles and Jane hadn't had an infant to deal with in 17 or 18 years.

To me, this is "straining at gnats and swallowing camels."There are numerous reasons why it is unlikely to impossible for Sarah to be the d/o Charles & Jane (biological or adopted), and no reasons why she cannot be the d/o James & Patience.When you don't have absolute proof, you weigh the probabilites, and that's your working hypothesis.

If the link between Sarah and Charles & Jane came from A.B. Sias's book, then maybe he's wrong.Just because something's printed in a book doesn't make it true.