So You Want to be a Mayflower Descendant - Records Gap - part 5

 

Where is the proof???

Remember that I sent in to the historian Generation 10 - Hannah Susan West Rushton.   (see Rushton and West Pedigree charts) The problem with Susan is that we don't have a contemporaneous birth record, like a baptism record or a government birth record.   The Bible record that we have for her birth seems to have been written by her husband Thomas after they got married.  Even worse, he wrote the wrong year, 1838, and later had to go back with a pencil and change the 8 into a 2!

I can't figure out how to put it right side up, sorry.

So, the historian is not too happy about that.

Every record that we do have, 5 censuses and a death record, give a different year for her birth, and different places of birth too.  Neither is any more specific than the province, Prince Edward Island or Nova Scotia.  I don't think that is such a big deal, but apparently the historian does.

A bigger problem is that we have absolutely no proof that Levi West is Susan's father, or, less important, that Pheby Scholfield West is Susan's mother.

In 1861, the Levi West family and the Thomas and Susan Rushton family are living pretty close to each other, in Pugwash Polling District, Cumberland County.  In 1871, they are next door.  (they could have moved, or it could mean that the census taker went up and down the road in a different order).  Levi, a widower, is living with Aaron, Serafina, Harding, and Alexander, who are all single.  Levi is 61, Aaron 32, Serafina 22, Harding 16, and Alexander age 1.  

Who are they?  It looks like, from their ages, that Levi is the father of Aaron, Serafina, and Harding.  But who is Alexander?  

And this isn't proof - Levi could be their uncle or some other relative.  It isn't proof that Levi is the father of his next door neighbor Susan, either - again, uncle, cousin, 2 people who happen to have the same last name....

in the census record above, Harding West is the 1st family, Thomas Rushton is the last family.  Remember that Susan's first name is Hannah.

Levi disappears by 1891 and Aaron by 1901, probably dead.  No death records were kept during this time period.  What were they thinking??????

Desperate times call for desperate measures.....