There is some debate in online trees as to the father of John Vincent, husband of Mary Clements and father of Thomas, with most coming down on the side of Capt. Jeremiah Vincent of Revolutionary War fame. This is the primary reason I ordered the records, hoping something contained in them would settle the question-- which it has.
The records from NARA prove clearly that my fourth-great-grandfather John died during the war, long before 1821 when Capt. Jeremiah made his will and named his son John as executor, thus ruling my John out as the Captain's progeny. Since this revelation, I've been working to discover who my John's parents might have been without any luck. His son Thomas died in 1842 in Victory, New York at the early age of 39 leaving not much more than his widow and children, a tombstone, and a few census records and deeds. Since nothing at all has come down in my family about him it's been slow going.
Part of my research into the lives of Thomas and his father John has involved the family of John's wife Mary Clements because when you run out of sources referencing your subject, it's time to check out the fans, (family and neighbors). John Vincent's wife Mary had a brother named Frederick Clements and the probate of his will at least cleared up one mystery. The 1850 census of Bristol, NY shows Louisa and Emmett Vincent, two children of Thomas Vincent and Matilda Taylor, living with a Jeremiah and Elizabeth Dubois who were both born in Saratoga County. I'd long wondered how Thomas' children wound up in the Dubois household after their father's death and if this couple, also from Saratoga County, was in some way related. As luck would have it the Dubois' are mentioned in Frederick Clements' probate records, "Elizabeth, wife of Jeremiah Dubois", being an heir of Frederick Clements-- his daughter! Louisa and Emmett were living with the daughter of their grandmother's brother, their cousin once removed. That makes Elizabeth a distant cousin of mine also.
Elizabeth and Jeremiah Dubois had two children, Mary and Andrew, and looking at various records I found that Andrew had married Mariette Worden. I knew I had seen the name Mariette Worden before and looking back through my family tree I discovered Mariette was the daughter of Davenport Worden, a brother of my third-great-grandfather Paul Worden, making Mariette also my distant cousin. I even had the name of her husband Andrew Dubois in my tree, but back when I entered it the name Dubois meant nothing to me.
As I looked further, I found Mariette Worden aged 14 living with Jeremiah and Elizabeth in the 1865 New York census. She was enumerated as a servant which made perfect sense as her father Davenport had died of consumption in 1860. No doubt her mother, who never remarried, found it difficult to support her four children by herself. Also in the Dubois household in 1865 was their son Andrew, aged 34! The 1870 census shows Andrew and Mariette Dubois living with his parents with a daughter born in 1868. They must have married when Mariette was around 17 unless the marriage was rushed...ahem.
None of this prurient speculation puts me any closer to finding who John Vincent's parents were, but it's interesting how the branches of my tree do twist around. At least they were my cousins, not each others.
