When I first began researching the Putnam family of Danvers, Massachusetts, every tree online at Ancestry.com said that my mother’s ancestor Ruth (Butler) Putnam died 1 Apr 1802. There was a death on that date in the published vital records of Danvers for a widow named Ruth Putnam, derived from “Jeremy Hutchinson’s record of deaths.”
Since Ruth’s husband, cabinetmaker Nathaniel Putnam, had died 15 Nov 1800, I assumed this record was for the right woman. I thought about how hard it must have been for her five daughters, ranging in age from 4 to 13, to have lost both of their parents within two years. I wondered who took care of them and how they managed.
As more and more digitized newspapers became available online, I began to look for newspaper notices to corroborate vital records, and to see if they contained any further information about the person or event. Finding the 1802 Salem Gazette death notice for Ruth Putnam on Genealogybank.com I read “At Danvers, Mrs. Ruth Putnam, widow of the late Capt. John Putnam, aged 81.” The Boston Independent Chronicle added that Ruth was a pious woman, and that her son Peter, aged 40, had also died.
The Ruth Putnam who died in 1802 was the widow of the wrong man, 48 years too old, and the mother of a son who was even older than Ruth (Butler) Putnam, who had no sons at all.
Since there was no evidence that she had died, I searched for Ruth as head of a household in the Federal censuses after 1800. In 1810 there was a Ruth Putnam living in Danvers, between the ages of 26 and 44 (she would have been 41), with three young females in the household. Two of these were 10 through 15 years old, and were probably my ancestor Lois (12) and her sister Pamelia (15).
My ancestor Lois Putnam’s sampler, probably completed as a school assignment.
The third female was between the ages of 16 and 25, and could have been any of the three older girls, Betsey (21), Sally (19) or Rebecca (17). I think this is less likely to be Betsey, however, because she was apprenticed to a tailor in Salem in 1807 according to the journal kept by her older half-brother, apothecary Archelaus Putnam (1787-1818).
Ruth’s death record, found on AmericanAncestors.org.
I also found Ruth as head of a Danvers household in 1820, 1830 and 1840, but not in 1850. I then found her 22 Jun 1850 death in the Massachusetts Vital Records 1841-1910, which clearly states she was the widow of Nathaniel Putnam. Today most of the online trees are correct, though a few give her death as 28 Jan 1821 citing no evidence and I could not find any.
Plough and Anchor Genealogy 