Those Details are Important

For the budding genealogists among you - I am one, too - there is plenty of evidence in the records you might find to validate the need to be careful with the details, even if the record you found is the original. Here is a case in point.

As I have written before, similar names were used often in a family and interchangeably, so verifying beyond doubt that *this* John Balch, for example (he is my 9xGGF, or 9th great-grandfather in genealogy shorthand) is, indeed, the John Balch whose records I need. In my case, there has been a question because John Balch had two sons, one named Benjamin and one named John.

And it gets even more complicated. Remember, I am referring to electronic copies of original records from the time of the Great Migration from England to the so-called New World and what would become the Massachusetts Bay Colony. This area would include Salem, Massachusetts, which has a somewhat infamous past, itself.

What follows is a copy of probate records of Essex County, Massachusetts, showing the names AGNES BALCH, AGNIS BAULCH, and ANES BALLCH in the same paragraph, referring to the same person. The purpose of this is to reinforce the importance of clearly validating spellings, relationships, dates, and all other data points when making decisions about your early ancestors. I have not been able to verify which, if any, of these spellings points to my own ancestor. In fact, another record shows Annis Balch as being the mother-in-law of Benjamin Balch, her grandson!

If it was easy, anyone would do it, right?