William Gary (bef. 1628 - 1712)

Will sever the child; posting a note to the profiles.

Wenham records has his death with his exact age .

William Gary of Roxbury (born c. 1628 apparently) was definitely not the William Geare of salem and later Wenham who received land in Salem in 1639 per "History of Salem" V2. p. 75 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uva.x000756038&view=1up&seq=99 when William of Roxbury was 11 years old. That would make William Geare of Wenham born probably before 1614 assuming he was at least 25 when he was granted land because he would have presumably been a freeman and member of church for at least a year.

History of Salem actually says this (I found this after writing the below): William Geare lived in the Wenham part of Salem; married Tryphena - ; died Oct. 17, 1672; she lived in Wenham, his widow, in 1676; children: 1. Ephraim; died Oct. 15, 1658 (?); 2. Samuel, baptized March 14, 1641; 3. Mary, baptized May 14, 1643 ; 4. John, baptized June 23, 1644; and probably Deborah and Tryphena.

My guess is that the William Geare of Wenham, Essex, Mass who was the father of the Ephraim Geare (died 1658) is the William Geare who died in Wenham on 12 October 1672, so a different man than the William Gary-33of Roxbury, Mass who died in 1712. 1672 death record of an adult William Geare of Wenham here https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-L979-95ZL?i=72&cc=2061550&personaUrl=%2Fark%3A%2F61903%2F1%3A1%3AFHZT-Q25 but I haven't spent a lot of time looking for other Geare records in Wenham yet.

GM Directory has a William "Geere" who came to Salem and Wenham, unknown origin, arrived about 1639. Now I see him here https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Geary-662 along with Tryphena.

Possibly William's Salem marriage per Torrey: VOLUME:Volume 1 PAGE:608 TEXT:GEERE, William (-1672) & Tryphena ____ (-1676+); by 1641(2?); Salem {Salem 1:450, 2:75; Wenham Ch. Rec.; Perkins (,6) 3; Bridges Anc. 41} unfortunately the Wenham church records I could find started 1643 and had very little information, I didn't see a mention of William or Tryphena http://nehh-viewer.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/#/content/Wenham/viewer/Church20records2C2016431805/1

Concerning the spelling of his first name. I'm not privy to Ancestry.com, is that where the record of his birth is? If not, referring to the changes log, where do we find the source for his birth record?

Just out of curiousity I looked into this a bit; Ancestry.com only provides a transcription of the FHL film number. (BTW Cheryl, I do have a subscription; feel free to hit me up for lookup help.) FamilySearch doesn't provide access online to the film, so no help there. However, it does seem that William is the preferred spelling in English records and Willyam is likely a transcription error.

The record of births, marriages, and deaths that I found at familysearch.org is entitled "Registers of the Parish of Little Hadham in Hertfordshire 1559 to 1812 Transcribed and Edited by William Minet M.A F.S.A M.CM.VII". It was published in 1907. At familysearch.org it is searchable. A search for 'William' yields 105 hits, and a search for 'Willyam' yields 50 hits. So the alternate spelling 'Willyam' existed and was recognized and copied by the transcriber.

My interpretation is that in the 17th century there was no standardized spelling of the name used by everybody. Which form exists in a given document is simply of no significance.

In the 1907 publication there is only one entry for 'Gary'.

GARY William -- son of Arthur & Francis -- 22 Aug 1628

There are some other church records, but they are not accessible online. They have been digitized, and as I understand it, they can be viewed at a Family History Center, but not online. It is a mystery to me why some digitized familysearch documents can be viewed online (that is, using my computer) and others can be seen only at a Family History Center. I have had the same problem with domestic U.S. documents. The inaccessible documents are probably facsimile copies of original records.

Hi Neal, I see you became a member in June of 2020, so you may not be aware of the WikiTree rule "their conventions not ours." By way of explanation, please look here: [1] It's for this reason that caution is taken before the names of people are changed.

The following article posted by the British National Archives may be of interest to this discussion. They state that spelling was not standardized until the 18th century. This site is also useful for gaining insight into paleography.

https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/palaeography/where_to_start.htm#spelling

Note their examples of spelling where i and y, i and j, or u and v can be interchangeable.

That is very enlightening - thank you for sharing !

There are two transcriptions of this record at Ancestry and Family Search. One spells the name William and the other spells it Willyam. Spelling Wiilyam is on film 991375 (only available at a library). The spelling William goes to a printed transcription mentioned by Neal here (I hope) So I suspect the original is spelled Willyam, so certainly falls into the "Use their conventions" (unusual spelling and all) However, as Joe mentioned the spelling conventions generally apply to LNAB not first name. This was a fairly recent change on the profile. I think it would be ok to change it back to William or leave it as it is.

What you see in a 17th century christening record does not represent the decision of parents about the written form of their child's name (unlike a modern birth certificate). The parents, who are in most cases illiterate, choose the oral or spoken form of their child's name which they convey orally to the priest. He or some other church official creates the written record on the basis of his (the priest's) customary usage. Another priest might spell the name differently. A given priest might spell it differently a day later or a few minutes later. It is not uncommon to see words, including proper names, spelled differently within a given document.

What has been said about given names applies also to surnames. It seems to me to be an error in logic to regard the form of a name on one specific document to be dispositive if that document is part of a cultural context in which there is substantial variation.

Neal, what's in the name fields simply represents what we see on records.

"Proper name" is what is listed on the birth or baptism record, if there was one. "Preferred name" is the name as spelled on most records throughout the person's life.

You can read almost all of the original church records go to

New englands hidden histories church records. They changed the way to look but you read the old books

Thank you for poking around at Ancestry.com, Jill.

It seems you may be right that the spelling "Willyam" may have been a transcription error. Are there any others from the PGM Crew who would like to give an opinion?

If not, wait a few days and if no response, the spelling of the given name may be changed to "William" by the Profile Manager (Neal) or a Leader. Thank you.

Cheryl, even though we occasionally argue about the spelling of a LNAB based on differing primary records, I don't think we have ever said a standard first name like William should have an unusual alternative spelling. His name is clearly William.