I know I promised a blog about Cayuga County however, events have intervened. Which here at Ellie's Ancestor's headquarters means I was distracted. An email from a long lost, distant cousin concerning the Worden family drew my attention. Here was another chance to answer the question I've had since I first began tracing this line many years ago. Namely, what makes everyone so sure that the wife of Squire, aka Sylvester, Worden, (1792- 1840-1850), was named Pelina Carter? Her first name is not really the issue, the 1850 census of South Bristol, New York, the only census the ephemeral Pelina appears in, shows her as a widow in the household of her son Sylvester along with her unmarried daughter Ruth. It's her surname I have an issue with. None of the trees or anything else I've read contain a source for her surname. Not a one. This was brought home to me while I was studying Asa Worden who was a second-great-uncle to Pelina's husband Squire. His son, also named Asa, was born in 1798. Asa Jr.'s wife is documented, her name was Phelina Charter! This sounds suspiciously like Pelina Carter.
Could it be that long ago a researcher made a mistake about this? Perhaps while being told the family history by an elderly aunt who confused the similar sounding names? Things like that happen. More than once I've seen trees online with incorrect information that is then unthinkingly copied over and over in other trees. My third-great-aunt Mary Augusta Vincent comes to mind. I proved beyond a doubt who her husband was but still there are many trees at Ancestry who insist she married someone else. They must have copied another tree because the primary sources disprove what they have in theirs.
The contention Pelina's surname was Carter has been around at least fifteen or twenty years, maybe longer. I made a trip over a decade ago to visit the Bristol town historian, the late Helen Fox, a lovely lady. She had the same information in her files, but hers noted up front there was no source. Some trees even claim to know Pelina's birthplace but offer no proof. I've looked high and low for any Carters in the area and the closest I've ever found was a man named Darius Carter who along his wife, Asenath Peters, is buried in East Bloomfield, where the family lived, about fourteen miles from Bristol. Daruis' tombstone says he was born in 1773 and it lists nine children of his but Pelina is not among them. One who is listed on the stone is Roswell Carter whose wife Mary P. Cudworth is buried in Bristol, but probably only because she's in her parent's plot there. Another child on the stone is Luna Carter. I briefly wondered if Pelina was really named Peluna with the nickname Luna? My Pelina's name appears in print nowhere but in the 1850 census and censuses are riddled with errors. But I found the Connecticut birth record for Luna of the tombstone and it's Luna in that record too. Oh how I wish these two families had stayed in Connecticut where early records were kept instead of moving to New York!
Can I be the only one who questions this? Sources are a requirement in genealogy and other family trees are not that; they are nothing more than clues, hopefully with a rationale for what they contain. Find A Grave is not a great source either. That site claims Pelina and her husband are buried in Covil's Corners cemetery in South Bristol but there are no pictures and a much earlier inventory of burials there, (done by the above mentioned Helen Fox, who was very serious about genealogy), does not list either of them. It looks like they don't have a stone so where did the burial information come from? Cemetery records, an obituary, a guess? Researchers should be informed about that sort of thing. I attempted to contact the submitter to ask where she found the information, but she doesn't accept messages.
Pelina's name may well have been Carter and she could be buried in Covil's Corners cemetery but until I see some proof I remain unconvinced. That Phelina Charter nags at me...
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