You might be humming a hip hop tune by now and continuing: "please stand up, please stand up." And I'll continue Eminem's lyrics: "We're gonna have a problem here."
Yes, I'm researching turn of the 18th century Andover, Mass. and finding that there are three Mary Danes, all competing to marry the eligible young men in town. At least in the histories written afterward they're competing, since often those histories disagree about which Mary married whom.
There's the eldest, Mary Dane-20, daughter of Nathaniel and Deliverance, who we're pretty sure married Andrew Allen, but someone thought she'd married Jeremiah Ballard, too because when I first started researching this, she was attached to both men here on WikiTree. That's since been fixed.
Then there's her cousin Mary, daughter of Francis and Hannah, (could be Dane-73 but....). I initially thought she was the best candidate for marrying Jeremiah Ballard in 1721 and a very low-tech but mostly accurate set of family histories I found said that she did.
Oh, wait, what's this? A Mary Dane married Joshua Frie in 1724. All of this in Andover! And at the same time I discover this marriage, I discover that the second Mary had a sister-in-law named Mary. Her brother Joseph married her in 1720 and promptly died in 1721. This would all be fine if the widow waited until 1724 to remarry. My low-tech family history lady talked about this family, too, and she says yes, Joshua Frie married Mary Harndon Dane. Clean, all lined up in time.
But wait. The Frye Genealogy book I found after learning all this says Joshua Frie married the daughter of Francis and Hannah Dane. And I found Mrs. Frie's headstone. Based her age, the headstone indicates Mrs. Frie was born in 1698 or 99, and there's a birth record to show that Francis and Hannah's daughter Mary was born in 1699. Mary Harndon's parents weren't married until 1701 and she had an older brother, so she was probably not born until 1702 or 1703. The marriage record, combined with the headstone inscription, are pretty strong evidence that the Frye Genealogy has it right.
That leaves me with the odd prospect that the widow Mary Harndon Dane married Jeremiah Ballard on December 29, 1721 after her husband had died, according to down records, on December 27, 1721.
Don't all wade into this at once, folks. I know you're dying to put this baby to rest.
I'm not ready to call this puzzle solved, so if any other facts come to light, please let me know. Or if you have any insights as to where I might look to find out more about these families, please fire away.
