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Sunday, August 26, 2018

Where Does David Gates (b1753 d1798) Belong! aka Gates-1969 WikiTree


Where Does David Gates-1969 Belong!
(1753 – 1798 WikiTree),
authored August 13th 2018

[Postscript (August 26th 2018):

This has been written to clarify the question in the above title. David-1969 should probably stay right where he is as a “probable” son of Rachel (Hayes-874) Gates. My preference would be with a note in the profile about the reason for probable.

One of the WikiTree “Helpers” originally suggested I file this as a post, more or less as a question, especially since I was proposing or questioning “people relationships”. It was a good recommendation as I had previously sent a private message to the “profile manager” but had not yet received a reply. In summary I was suggesting that David Gates-1969 (WikiTree adds these serial numbers as profiles get created) was not the son of Rachel (Hayes-874) Gates. Second I was suggesting that Samuel Gates-1970 was not his father nor was he Rachel's spouse. I still hold by that assertion and will develop the evidence in another entry in this blog.

My reasoning should have included a careful review of my own files as I was in this case too focused on the Barbour Collection where nine children of Samuel and Rachel were listed, and David was not among them. One of the “Helpers” in G2G suggested that the Whitney Genealogy may have been the first source to suggest David as child. The Helper wrote, “That David was "youngest child" (and supposedly unrecorded child) of Samuel and Rachel was proposed as "probable" by Stephen Whitney Phoenix, 1878, The Whitney Family of Connecticut, and Its Affiliations..., Volume 1 page 65.”

Another G2G Helper went to the Torrey record of the Stephen Gates family published in THE NEW ENGLAND HISTORICAL AND GENEALOGICAL REGISTER, 1966-1967. David Gates is listed by Torrey as a possible child of Samuel and Rachel and married to a Jerusha Whitney (1774). As I re-examined the Torrey document I did notice that, James Gates had also married a Whitney, Polly Whitney. James would be the immediately older brother to “the possible” brother David. Both James and David later had relocated to Vermont.

James was born in August 1752 and David in June 1753 [Whitney1878]. David could perhaps be attributed to other Gates families in proximity in Fairfield County but this has not been pursued. Samuel's brother Jonathan had eight children in his will, none of them David. Perhaps the WikiTree entry for David Gates-1969 can have a note added about the “possible” assignment. One of the G2G Helpers did modify the entry to include the Whitney source.

The children of Samuel Gates-170 and Mary Richards-2135 (m.1709.10) absent Samuel JR (he is not listed in Barbour) were born in Pomfret (1712-1722) Gates family in Pomfret. The WikiTree profile for Samuel Gates-1970 reports he was born in August 14, 1715 but in East Haddam, CT [Barbour]. Torrey [NEHGR1966-67] reports Samuel as perhaps born born in Pomfret, 1710, but misreports his death as 1798. One theory was that the death was misreported as 1798 and should have been 1793, from ae of 84 at death, as reported, in the Barbour Collection. The death date of Gates-1970 (spouse Rachel) was before December 1793 by Connecticut Probate Records, docket #1920, Hartford State Library. From the docket #1920, Jonathan Gates of Ridgefield, Samuel Gates of Norwalk and Thomas St. John all of Fairfield County were the administrators.

Using geographical locations and children births [Barbour] Samuel Gates of Norwalk is likely the spouse of Ruth (Olmstead-5367) Gates and thus the son of Samuel Gates-1970. Jonathan Gates of Ridgefield is probably also a son of Gates-1970. I believe Thomas St. John is an in-law via the Hayes sisters (named in James Hayes Will).

At this point I am breaking off this postscript and starting a separate document. It will discuss the profile for Gates-1970 and Gates-4366 titled . “Which Samuel Gates married Rachel Hayes on April 1, 1734?”. I have made other minor edits in the body below for clarification.


White, L. Cook. (1994). The Barbour collection of Connecticut town vital records. Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical Pub. Co.]
[Original G2G Post]

I recently joined/registered with WikiTree. I especially like their collaborative model and emphasis on sources not just names and dates. They also have a “personal” touch to helping you feel comfortable as you learn the ropes … nonetheless it is a puzzle at times as to what to do next.

I chose WikiTree as a place to actually enter my collected genealogical data to avoid redundancy and later to produce a GEDCOM file for use with other genealogical tools, especially the DNA type. My first steps involved creating paternal and maternal lines and branch out from there as I learned the ropes. Redundancy is avoided because a lot of ancient ancestors (PGM – Puritan Great Migration) are already in the database and you just have to learn how to connect to them with your more recent ancestors – saves time and if you have valuable facts to add there is a gentle process for doing it.

I write this narrative about David Gates-1969 born of East Haddam, Connecticut to sort out what I see as confusing facts. If I get them sorted out I will be either adding something to Gates-1969's story or recommending some changes and will learn the ropes.

In WikiTree David Gates-1969 is identified as the child of Samuel Gates-1970 and Rachel (Hayes-874) Gates. This is the principle fact I have trouble with. The sources in this entry stem mainly from IGI and Pedigree Resource Files. In this case those sources lead to a little more confusion by virtue of dates – typos perhaps.

In my state of innocence I created a Samuel Gates-4366, surprised that he did not exist in WikiTree already and became by default the “profile manager”. From my original source searches about Samuel Gates-170 and spouse Mary (Richards-2135) Fairbanks Truesdell Gates were married in 1709/10.

Woodstock Vital Records (p21): Samuel Gates and Mary Trusdell both of Mashmoquet now Pomfret, Feb. 12: 1709.10

In my mind and record keeping I have always linked Samuel Gates-170 and my new creation Samuel Gates-4366 as father and son; as have others as in RootsWeb (as early as 2010) and I suspect this largely stems from the Barbour Collection (F104 A58 W48 v34(p156) and v36(p178-179)).

Their respective families are quite respectably identified by names, dates and location. Gates-170 was in Pomfret until at least 1722 (birth of daughter). His spouse, Mary Richards-2135 died in Ridgefield CT, March 26, 1732. Samuel Gates-4366 would have been ~22 when he married Rachel Hayes-874. Our other Samuel Gates-1970 would have been roughly 16. Rachel Hayes-874 would have been roughly 24 years of age.

I can add more details but I think this suffices to suggest that Gates-1970 and Gates-1969 should be disconnected from Gates-170 and Gates-4366 should take Gates-1970s place and his descendants put in place. This spills over to Mary Richards-2135 whose record can be made more complete about Fairbanks. (This request has been modified as in Postscript above.)

[End Original Post/Edited]

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