Day Research Faux Pas
compiled by Teresa Martin Klaiber May 2012
The past several years I have been dusting off many years of
research and have been carefully scanning and double checking documentation.
Amazing what a good review will uncover.
Scanning my Day
research I realize I was one of the contacts James Edward Day made shortly
before his death. He had written Descendants of Christopher Day of Bucks
County, Pennsylvania in 1959. His
1994 letters state that he now knew the parents of Christopher were Christopher
Day and Elizabeth Gowland from Eston, Yorkshire.
It was not long until I was able to find what I always term
a “red flag” in research. Many of the web
sites that are floating state that Christopher Day of Bucks County was baptized
22 March 1689. My own website has not been updated and is in
ERROR. [Not only did I key in the baptism as 22 March
1689 using secondary material but I also put that he was possibly born in the
Province of Pennsylvania. I must have
been sipping wine at the time!]
The Yorkshire records are now readily available. But apparently no one has looked at them
closely or chose to ignore the burial records.
The Eston Parish records were transcribed by the Yorkshire Archaeological
Society & Yorkshire Parish Register Society and I did plow through the
transcriptions .
J. Edward Day was correct that a Christopher Day married
Elizabeth Gowland 30 January 1677 [Eston
Register page 36]. It is followed by the
baptism of a daughter 26 August 1677. Three
more daughters were baptized between 1678-1687.
Then on 22 March 1690 Christopher
son of Christopher was baptized at Easton [page 46]. It was followed almost
immediately with “Christopher Day son of
Christopher Day Bur ye 8 Day July” 1690 [page 46].
The following year Christopher and Elizabeth Gowland Day
have another daughter Elizabeth baptized and recorded. The elder Day’s both died within a month of
each other at Eston in 1721.
They may have had another son after the death of Christopher
in 1690. It was common to name a child after a deceased infant. It is doubtful there was yet another
Christopher with son Christopher during this time when the records for this parish
are reviewed carefully.
There are other red
flags. Our ancestor, Christopher Day
resided in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
The first recorded land purchase mentioned for a Christopher Day occurred in 1689
in the Province of Pennsylvania within what is Bucks County. The purchase was from Arthur Cooke for a portion
of a 2000 acre survey. 1689 places all
of the issues cited at Eston in England as infants.
The History
of Bucks County, Pennsylvania mentions an Arthur Day and Richard Day as
landowners in Plumstead, Bucks County that J. Edward Day never connected
to the family and warrants further research.
The Christopher Day of this topic is
said to have married wife Martha 4 November 1714 and then baptized two days
later at Pennypack Baptist Church in northeastern Philadelphia. The church was
first known as Lower Dublin Church. Portions
of the church wanted Saturday as the Sabbath when Keithians [dissident
Friends sometimes called Christian Quakers]
merged with Lower Dublin. J. Edward Day commented in correspondence that Christopher was a witness to a Quaker wedding in 1722.
Using a mathematical assumption [the
word we never want to use in genealogy] that places Christopher of Bucks County
just coming of age at his marriage in 1714 – his birth could be about 1693. Even this presents a problem. According to The History of Bucks County Thomas Dungan sold 50 acres to our
Christopher Day in 1708. This is about
one mile above Cross Keys where Christopher Day is buried. Dungan was the minister at Pennypack Church. Using the same mathematical assumption had
he just become of age in 1708 he would be born about 1687. This
makes linking Christopher who dies in Bucks County, Pennsylvania in 1748 even
less likely to be the son of the Day family cited in the Eston records above.
No one, to date, has been able to pinpoint Christopher Day's age when he made his will in Bucks County in 1748 [WBK 2 p 141]. If he died age 80 he would have been born about 1668. this places him as an older gentleman when he married at Pennypack. He and Martha had six children including Nathaniel [my line] and Christopher Jr. born about 1723.
This is not the first time
that erroneous material has been regenerated.
It is not the first time I have made an error. When one makes a faux pas it is just best to
get it out there and hope that this will also "regenerate" so that the
questions can be answered.
