A fact from Susan Reeve Lyon appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 2 January 2017 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
Did you know... that although Susan Reeve Lyon could not own property while a married woman, she was able to run her own apothecary shop as a widow?
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This article, while nominally biographical, has little about its subject's birth, and nothing at all about her death. While it mentions two marriages, there's nothing about children, etc. These are glaring omissions. If these facts are truly unknown, the article should say so. --Piledhigheranddeeper (talk) 16:19, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Piledhigheranddeeper: Fyi - finding birth and death dates can be incredibly difficult for many historical people, despite the fact that their work may be well-documented. For a non-noble woman living in the 17th century, it is not at all surprising that birth/death dates may not be readily available, if they are available at all. While your point that birth/death dates being desirable is certainly valid and this article could certainly be expanded, there is no reason to impugn the credibility of this article or its author(s) on the grounds that those dates (or indeed any mention of children) are missing. In the interest of civility, please don't attack either articles or authors by dismissing their work with phrases like "nominally biographical" (emphasis added). TastierSpeech (talk) 23:40, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
As noted in the original post, two months ago, if this information is "truly unknown", as you suggest it is, the article should say so. It is the unacknowledged gap, not the bare fact of the gap, that I noted. --Piledhigheranddeeper (talk) 02:14, 5 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]