Talk:William Berry (pioneer)

SUGGESTED CORRECTIONS & OTHER NOTES FOR WILLIAM BERRY (PIONEER)

Please note that the first four sources, listed below, give Jun 28, 1654 as the date on which William Berry's widow, Jane, was appointed administratrix of William's estate, and not the date of his death, as this article claims.

None of the listed sources, here or in the main article, give a definite birth date for William, though this article appears to give a definite date of 1619 for his birth. Only "Berrys by the Beach" states that "[Wife Jane's] age was given in 1686 as 67 yrs., placing her birthdate at c. 1619." While this may suggest an approximate birth date for William, he could easily have been born as early as 1610, or even after 1619.

Also, in perusing all but one of the sources listed in this article, plus those listed below, I have found no evidence to suggest that, (a) William's father was Johan Berry, or (b) his wife Jane's maiden name (and/or previously married name) was "Locke Hermins".

In fact, regarding item (b) above, "Piscataqua Pioneers" states quite unequivocally:

"As misunderstandings have arisen about the ident[ity] of Jane (-) Berry, wife of the immigrant William(1) [subject of this article], we should emphasize that her ancestry is NOT at present kn[own] The William Berry who m. 19 Dec 1689 Sabina(2) Locke dau. of Nathaniel(1) and [Sabina?] (Hemins) Locke {and sis[ter] of Judith(2) Locke who m. William(2) Berry} was William(3) son of John(2) and Susannah (-) Berry. Sabina(2) (Locke) Berry m. 2nd 1710 Abraham Lewis, and m. 3rd 1716/17 John Philbrick. She d. 1761 ae 95. The ident[ity] of the mother-in-law of William(2) and William(3) Berry as a Hemins/Hermins has never been shown to have anything whatsoever to do with a poss[ible] ident[ity] for Jane (-) Berry (wife of William(1)). The erroneous ident[ity] of Jane as a Hemins prob[ably] arose from misunderstandings about the several William Berrys."

It is unsettling that this argument clearly lay at hand in one of the main sources - in fact, the first listed, and yet was completely overlooked in the production of this article.

Also, though William is briefly mentioned on pp. 385-386 of "Piscataqua Pioneers", as noted in this article, it may be useful for the reader to know that the main section for William Berry is found on pp. 90-92 of the same source.

Finally, the sources listed in the main article include: "Brewster, Charles W., The Selling of the Land ~1860". This is completely useless. I have been completely unable to locate this source, even through WorldCat.org. After some effort, I discovered that this seems likely to have been lifted from a web page at the following URL:

www.themorrisclan.com/GENEALOGY/BERRY William F7606.html

which mentions "Selling of the Land" in what is clearly a duplicate of the source listed in this article. However, the next line on this web page provides a link to the following URL:

seacoastnh.com/brewster/6.html

wherein the astute reader may distinguish the ad hoc labeling, "Selling of the Land", from the actual title of Brewster's work, "Rambles About Portsmouth". I.e. the source should been given as: "Brewster, Charles W., Rambles About Portsmouth (Portsmouth, NH: Brewster, 1859)". I suggest that the author of this article take the time to investigate not only the quality and veracity of their sources, through inspection and comparative analysis, but even the very existence of their sources.

SOURCES

1) Sybil Noyes, "Genealogical Dictionary of Maine and New Hampshire" (Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Company, Inc., 1976).

2) M. O. Hall, "Rambles About Greenland in Rhyme" (Boston, MA: Alfred Mudge & Son, Printers, 1900).

3) Charles Henry Pope, "Pioneers of Maine and New Hampshire" (Boston, MA: Charles H. Pope, 1908).

4) Getchell, Sylvia Fitts, "Berry by the Beach" (Newmarket, N.H.: 1980)

5) "Piscataqua Pioneers: Selected Biographies of Early Settlers in Northern New England" (Portsmouth, NH: Piscataqua Pioneers, 2000).

6) Brewster, Charles W., "Rambles About Portsmouth" (Portsmouth, NH: Brewster, 1859).

G3NCR42Y (talk) 11:53, 17 August 2015 (UTC)