Anyone have documentation that can help distinguish Mary Bryans?

Question

See the note in the profile for Mary Bryan-83, but it seems that Morgan Bryan has more daughters named Mary than he should have. I think at least two different Marys - one married Forbes and one married Curtis - and a Mary whose father is Thomas, not Morgan (but not sure whether Mrs. Forbes or Mrs. Curtis or another Mary).  <br>

If anyone can shed light on these Marys, it would be much appreciated!   <br>

Cheers, Liz

Comments

Liz, not so much answering you as providing a generic comment for less experienced researchers who read the question and see a similar issue in their own trees:

Aside from erroneous records, erroneous merges, and outright misidentified peoplem, there are some legitimare reasons.to find multiple people with the same name in one family group.

1. A single daughter married multiple times but (as so often happens) an age is recorded incorrectly making them appear to be different people. Without enough proof to merge them together it looks like multiple children with the same name. (check approximate marriage dates and approximate death dates of husbands)

2. Adoptions - children often moved in with whatever family could take them when their parents died, and since many children were named after ancestors it often happened that repeating names appear in the same household, enumerators often recording nieces, nephew, and grandchildren as sons and daughters. (I always watch for out of sequence ages on Censuses which is often a clue that the person is an addition to the family, death certificates are equally likely to resolve the question as they are to confound you further)

3. Recycling - Eldest daughter Mary dies, next child born is named Mary in her honour. (this one is obvious if you know the eldest child died, otherwise it can be hard to spot, particularly if there is little age gap between the two)

4. Multiple spouses. daughter of the first wife is named for maternal grandmother... daughter of the second wife is named for her maternal grandmother, both names happen to be the same. (Rare, but I have seen it, although mostly it occurs when a woman remarries which is somewhat obvious. Very tricky to spot when a man remarries a woman with a similar or same name to his previous wife.)

5. Naming convention - I have seen entire familes (and I hate them fiercely) where there is a naming pattern such as Mary Margaret, Mary Elizabeth, Mary Ann, and Mary Mary Quite Contrary (lol) - usually census takers were good about using their everyday names but then a marriage registration might omit the middle name and we end up with Mary's from the same parents all married to different people - even more confusing when they continue using the name Mary with their new surname. (ages can help, but are very often incorrect - if you suspect this has happened scour the original records for anything that could be an initial, including signatures)

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Thanks again Rob - you give great advice!!  I must admit I'm a bit overwhelmed at the moment and didn't explore dates for spouses & children.

Answer 1

OK so I actually looked at the records and did some digging - a lot of inconsistent and conflicting information- hope I have encompassed enough for someone else to evaluate :)

My first comment is that Bryan 331, 746 and 981 are all clearly based on the same information. All have the husband Forbes/Forbis All born in Virginia both profiles that give a date of birth give 1731 and specify Shenandoah, Winchester.

Bryan-83 has a different place of birth, a different spouse, and has a death of 1742 which if they were the person born in 1731 would have made them 11, an unlikely age to be married, let alone married twice.

In one account (Link 1) Morgan Bryan (the 2nd) and Martha Strode had children Joseph, Samuel, James, John, Morgan, William, Thomas, and Rebecca. No Mary, except William's wife Mary BOONE(married in 1755), This account gives Morgan Bryan as the son of Francis Bryan.

In a different account (Link 2) Morgan Bryan is the son of an Unknown Bryan (author believes William) and Sarah Bringer (vice Brinker) In this account Morgan's children are Joseph, Samuel, James, Morgan, John, Elinor, Mary, William, Thomas, Sarah, Rebecca; the first four or five being born in Chester, PA before they removed to the area later known as Winchester in 1730. Mary was, by this account, not born in PA - the records, except Bryan-83 make sense with the family settling on Opequan River.

According to (Link 1) the Bryan family less son Joseph removed to Davie or Rowan, NC in 1748 (except son Joseph who remained in VA) which is where daughter Rebecca married the famous frontiersman Daniel Boone in 1755.

I would tend to give credence to Link 2, simply as it is written by a great-grand-nephew of Mary Bryan, unfortunately he says nothing further of her than listing her as a child of Morgan Sr.

Another reference (Link 3) also lists Mary but gives no further information. This work appears to be the best researched of the documents examined. Interestingly this reference suggests that Martha Bryan married first Stephen Gamo, and Second ? Fobes/Forbis of Kentucky.

This page (Link 4) is about the Forbis family that lived in Virginia, North Caroline at Rowan and Bryan's station, and then into Green, Kentucky which largely mirrors the migration of the Bryan family. Footnote 1 mentions a Mary Bryan, but this is probably Mary (Forbis) Bryan wife of Morgan Bryan Jr.

The account of descendant George Bryan published in 1927 (link 5) supports the other references that the families most intertwined with the Bryan Family are  Boone and Forbis (also given as Forbush) so I would suggest that the unknown husband should be a Forbis and not a Forbes

A final discussion (Link 6) helps put, in my mind, a plausible scenario: Mary , daughter of Morgan and Martha Bryan is, according to Link 3, third in Birth order and is therefore born before 1830 in Chester, PA if Link 2 is correct that the first 4 or 5 children were born prior to removing to VA. The 1742 will of Mary Curtis discussed at Link 6 is persuasively the correct Mary Bryan simply based on the names of all the male family members (given in Link 2/3) as well as sister Ellinor. Since Thomas Curtis passed in 1741, their daugher Mary Curtis (b.~1741) would have been taken in by one of the other family members (possibly appearing in some records as Mary Bryan as a consequence) There could also be an error wherein people have associated Mary (Bryan) Curtis as the person who marries ? Forbis, when it is Mary Curtis (d/o Thomas Curtis and Mary Bryan) who did so.

Link 1. http://archive.org/stream/shearerakersfami00shea#page/10/mode/2up

Link 2. http://archive.org/stream/boonebryanhistor00brya#page/12/mode/2up

Link 3: http://archive.org/stream/boonefamilygenea1922spra#page/508/mode/2up

Link 4: http://alvispat.wordpress.com/forbis-james-sr-of-rowan-co-nc-bryans-station-lincoln-and-green-counties-kentucky/

Link 5: http://www.gabrielferrel.citymax.com/f/GeorgeBryan_recollections.pdf

Link 6: http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=frostinaz01&id=I9836

Comments

Wow! and Thank You!!

Answer 2

and another answer, from Paula S (Thanks Paula!), who sent me pdfs of some pages from ''Seven Sons and Two Daughters of Morgan Bryan (1671-1763) "Irish Immigrant" and Some of Their Descendants,'' David C. McMurtry, a limited edition printed in the United States of America at Lexington, Kentucky; Mil-Mac Publishers, 2009

 
I started adding some of the info - for now, all the kids listed on Morgan's profile (Bryan-157), details added for all but Mary, Samuel, & Morgan Jr. I'll move the details to the kids' profiles in future.

 
The answer to the two Marys is from another page in that book, which says Mary (Bryan) Curtis had a daughter Mary Curtis who married Robert Forbes/Forbis. Not sure yet how that works with the dates we have so far. Sources for the information in the book weren't included on the pages I have.

 
Cheers,
Liz