Stanton Williams and William Williams: One or two persons?

Question

I was doing some sourcing when I ran across two apparent twins: Stanton Williams and William Williams both with 5 May 1782 birth dates; parents John and Content. The only place I find them as twins is in Wheeler's History of the Town of Stonington, page 672. Stanton does not appear in the Barbour Collecion for Stonington at all.

Barbour has the birth of William Stanton (Williams) - one person - on 4 May 1782, the son of John and Content.

Ancestry.com has entries in its Connecticut Church Record Abstracts for Stonington:

"William, s.[son] Capt. John & Content, bp.[baptized] Dec. 23 1784." Vol. W, p. 251.

"William-Stanton, Desire & George, children of Capt. John & Content, bp. Dec. 13 1785 at home, 'she being able to come to church.' "  Vol. 4, p. 76.

Note that the 2 entries come from different sources. I surmise that they are different entries for the same event, and the one year difference is an error in one or the other.

The lack of any separate entry for a Stanton Williams, son of John and Content, and the hyphenated name, indicating a single person, I believe leads to the conclusion that Stanton Williams is a non-existent person, and "his" profile should be merged away into William's profile.

Answer 1

I would most definitely not merge yet only going by the baptism record, although your logic is good. I think it's too important to leave to one original source, unless you are an expert on Stonington and know what is available to you and how extensive that baptism record is. Did Capt. John leave a will where children might be named? What did land records record? Local militia records, etc.etc. Obviously, you know how to trace a person's life path, I don't mean you have to write an entire genealogy but to be sure before you declare a person non existent -- which does have some weight in genealogy.

Comments

See my answer below.

Answer 2

If you go to Williams-13021, there is source ref which has a link to page 672, where it states they are twins. Hope that helps

Comments

Thanks, Marion. My question made reference to that source, and that source is the one I believe is incorrect. It has been the only reference I find referring to twins. Stanton appears nowhere else as an individual.

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Sorry, I obviously didn’t read your message thoroughly. Hopefully someone will come up with an answer for you.

Answer 3

I think that the reason Stanley originally created the William Stanton Williams and Stanton Williams profiles (way back when) was because he wasn't sure if they were the same people or two different people. Before he left WikiTree I was helping him get biographies (with inline citations) completed, while also working on my own, I haven't got to them all yet...and I've adopted a lot of his profiles. I adopted both of those profiles in September. I haven't gotten to them yet and my "I think" statement that I opened this answer with is based on a quick assessment of this G2G post that I only just now saw in my Family feed that I received in my email this morning (would have been nice if someone had contacted me via the message box on the profile in question or sent me a private message, so I could have responded sooner). One of the many project I am working on is the Stonington One Place Study, so I have a LOT reference books that I have accumulated. One of those references includes ''History of the First Congregational Church, Stonington, Connecticut, 1674-1874; With The Report of Bi-Centennial Proceedings, 03 Jun 1874; With Appendix Containing Statistics of the Church'' which states on page 251, 23 Dec 1784, "Desire, William, {comma} Stanton,..." were baptized at home because their mother, Content was too ill to attend church. The ''Denison Genealogy'' (1963) on Pg 44 #1300 is William Williams b. 04 May 1782 (twin); bpt. 23 Dec 1784; on Pg 45 #1301 is Stanton Williams b. 04 May 1782 (twin); bpt. 23 Dec 1784. This informatioin is also found in ''Descendants of George Denison'' (1881) on Pg 185 #3883 and #3884. (And for the record Mr Denison (author of the first) and Mr Baldwin (author of the second) do not always agree). 

Since I am the profile manager of both of these profiles (Stanton and William) I can make the necessary changes, or if you want Jim you can do it. Let me know 

Comments

Oh, and for researching anyone in Stonington, using only ''History of Stonington'' is not a good idea...that's what Stanley was doing. If you need links to more resources let me know I have over 100 of them.

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Jim, I don't know what you were looking at on the Ancestry church record, but Stanton is in frame 454 and William is in frame 455. Two different children (persons). The link you left in William's profile takes you to where John (dad) married Content (mom) which is frame 447. 

Anything to do with the First Congregational Church of Stonington I use the ''History of the ''First Congregational Church of Stonington'' source because it's not on Ancestry (where not everyone can see it). I also include that category (already put into William and Stanton's profiles), because it's part of the Stonington One Place Study.