Some details of Richard and Elizabeth Booth's family

Author's Introduction: I'm spending a lot of time looking at the Booth Family of early Connecticut colony. Sometimes I may interrupt this series to look at other ancestors, but I am very interested in getting some more information about my mother's family roots.

The children of Richard and Elizabeth Hawley Booth....

Daughter 1). Elizabeth Booth Minor. Born:10 SEP 1641 • Derby, Fairfield, CT, Death 24 OCT 1732 • Woodbury, Litchfield, CT.  Married at age 17 to John Minor. They had 9 children. She died in Woodbury CT. 

How far is that from Stratford (or Derby) in Fairfield County, CT?  I don't know why these children of Richard and Elizabeth have Derby as their birth places...which is 20 miles upriver from Stratford.  And Woodbury is another 20 miles upriver from Derby.  There is a map of Stratford which shows some property owned by different Booth families.  Perhaps there are records of births and deaths in Derby and Woodbury.  It is just a detail that belongs to great aunts and uncles way back in early settling stages of the country.

Next birth was 2) Anna Booth, supposedly born Feb. 14, 1643 and died Feb 14, 1644. How sadly romantic. Valentines day.  No more comments.

3) Ephrahim Booth - Born: 1 MAY 1648 • Derby, Fairfield, CT, Death 9 MAR 1683 • Stratford, Fairfield, CT.  He married twice, and both wives were named Mary.  Actually, he may have only married once, and two sets of genealogical records give different Marys as his wife, because the children are all born after the first Mary's death. I'm not going to try to figure it out...there were about 4 children, and the marriages were either in 1674 or 75.

4). Ebenezer Boothe, Birth 18 NOV 1651 • Stratford, Fairfield, Connecticut, Death 1732 • Stratford, Fairfield, CT. Fortunately (for me) I now find that he and his brother John were not born and died the same year, as previous records had shown.  Hoorah for more hints at ancestry to get that straightened out.  I now will go back to my comment on Richard and Elizabeth Hawley Booth's posts about that and make a note.

Ebenezer has several names listed in Ancestry as his wife, and I think again there is confusion in records as to which generation perhaps is being referenced.  They had some children, and I haven't gone any further into this line of the family. I notice some of the records include his name spelled "Boothe." There were descendants in Stratford who also spelled their name that way.  Ebenezer did have a will which has children listed, but not whoever his wife might have been. There are about 8 children with each wife according to the 37 public Ancestry family trees...and they don't agree. 

5)  John Booth, Sgt. Birth - 5 NOVEMBER 1653 • Stratford, Fairfield County, CT,  DEATH 6 DECEMBER 1728 • Stratford, Fairfield, Co.   It's worth looking at the various documents which are listed under "hints" at Ancestry, if I have the time.  I didn't look at the half dozen about a John Booth in England, since I knew his parents lived in Stratford CT.  But I did find a Barbour Collection document listing of the date of John Booth's death (as used on all the Ancestry listings) but he was "s. of John and Elizabeth Booth," not son of Richard and Elizabeth.  It's possible the other listing which states he died in 1717 might have been accurate.  

John married Dorothy Hawley, in 1678.  They had around 9 children (some with same birthdates again). Then he married again at age 61 in 1714 to Hannah Jones.  They may have both died in 1717. Or he may have lived until 1728.

A descendant has added his information at Find A Grave...

The son of my ancestors, RICHARD & ELIZABETH (HAWLEY) BOOTH, he married Dorothy Hawley on June 14, 1678 in Stratford. He married second, widow Hannah Clark on January 31, 1714.

His father gave him the homestead in Stratford on March 15, 1688. He served in the Pequot Indian War.

I'm leaving his death date as it stood, 1728, on my Ancestry tree.  Need more information (maybe a document more primary than the Find A Grave listing, which was written within the last 20 years.


6) Joseph Booth Sr (Deacon) my eight times great grandfather.    I'll dedicate another blog post to him.  

Happy birthday Elizabeth Hawley Booth Abt.1618-1689

Author's Introduction: I'm spending a lot of time looking at the Booth Family of early Connecticut colony. Sometimes I may interrupt this series to look at other ancestors, but I am very interested in getting some more information about my mother's family roots.
 
Her birthday is also celebrated March 5, but I've got someone else's birthday already posted then.  So I don't think my 9 times great grandmother will mind a day or so either way.

She was mentioned in my blog for Richard Booth, who is listed on ancestry as having the same birth date and death date as his wife Elizabeth Hawley Booth.  I think it's more likely that someone in the Church of Later Day Saints (Mormons they have asked to be called) listed their ancestors with fabricated birth and death dates.  And since the LDS runs (?) the Ancestry site, I can't very well complain.  They do a fabulous job of providing all of us some good programs which serve to collect information about ancestors.

She supposedly was born in Parwich Derbeyshire England.  But we don't really know her dates, nor who her parents were.  She at some point immigrated to the American colonies. Whether it was before or after her marriage to Richard Booth, is not known.  Some descendants give her a marriage date of 1640 in Fairfield County, CT. 

 

 

Their 7 children included one who died before her first year.  And Ancestry is listing 2 of the children as having same birth and death dates...as I mentioned in Richard's post yesterday. (I'm going to spend some time looking at new information about the siblings.)**

Joseph was the son who became my great times 8 grandfather.  His family marker is quite large in the Congregational Cemetery in Stratford, CT.

As I look at her children's dates, (listed on ancestry) there are additional children added to Elizabeth Hawley Booth and Richard's family.  And it was already stretching things for Elizabeth (the mother) to have had her last child when age 51.  Now there's one who would have been born in her 53rd year.

Sorry folks, these are unrealistic.  It is far more likely that her own birth was not in 1607.  Let's agree that her marriage to Richard was in 1640.  She was unlikely to have been 33.  It's much more likely that she was in her early 20s.  So I'll say about 22 years old.  Just shifting that to a probable birthday in 1618 means she was only 42 at the time of her last daughter's birth.

It's a shift for me to arbitrarily make.  But the people who listed her birthday as exactly the same date and year as her husband's and exactly the same death date made their guesses based on what they knew at the time.  And the many times that these dates have been copied since someone guessed them doesn't make them any more a fact than the one I am suggesting.

Now I see how cumbersome it is to write about the children on the same post, and that I need to split this post up into more than one posting...so next I'll be sharing about some of the Booth children.

** I found out and will share tomorrow, that the 2 sons didn't have the same birth dates after all!