I'd like to shake the hand of the person who thought it would be a good idea to put books on the internet. Especially the obscure genealogies. Whilst perusing records of the Wiggins family I drifted into the family of Freelove Nichols who in 1803 married Richard Wiggins of New York City, (who I believe is a brother of my 4th great-grandfather William Wiggins who moved to Wolcott, NY). As I delved further into the Nichols family I began to feel a wee bit guilty about wasting time on lines I wasn't closely related to.
I came across information about Freelove's mother, Freelove Wright, which stated that before she married Samuel Nichols, she was married to Samuel Wood for only a short time before his untimely death and that she bore him a son named William whose name she changed to Samuel in honor of his father. A short biography of William/Samuel Wood followed which detailed his life and various careers, the last one being founder and owner of a successful publishing company. A list of some of the books he published was included in the biography, many of which were for children.
That certainly piqued my interest. In an earlier blog I made mention of an educational book written by the above mentioned Richard Wiggins. I eagerly turned the virtual page and there it was! The book "The New-York Expositor", written by Richard Wiggins, was on the list. Samuel had published the book of his niece's husband Richard Wiggins in 1818. That certainly tends to tie the two men together genealogically speaking. Had I listened to that nagging voice saying,"you're wasting your time", I never would have found this connection.
It's a real shame New York didn't keep records in the early 18th century, or many in the 19th for that matter. It's proving difficult to find evidence definitively linking the various Wiggins in New York City to each other or to those living in Wolcott, making clues like the book list especially valuable. Speaking of which, I made the trip to the Wayne County Historian's office today only to find the 1855 census of Wayne County, New York is not complete. Towns whose names begin with the letters A-P are all that survive. The records for Wolcott no longer exist so there is no chance of finding Richard Wiggins; the one mentioned in the last blog who died in 1857 and who married Hannah Ostrander.
The only thing worse that no record created, is record loss.
When you’ve exhausted the usual records, there’s little choice but to look to the more ‘unlikely sources’, but it’s there you often find the most illuminating information. And, there’s nothing more disappointing than travelling to view a source only to find it doesn’t have what you expect.
ReplyDeletewell sometime, it's worth try
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