James Potter (abt. 1718 - aft. 1782)

Is there a reason you assume he was 21 when he married and not 31?

All genealogists "assume" legal age to marry absent any direct information to prove the actual year of birth. He could be as young as 18 when he married but historians seem to agree that most men married in their mid-twenties while women were in their early twenties. I believe actual law at the time was that men had to be 18 and women 21 but now can't seem to locate where I read that, nor the years that the law applied.

What we know for sure is that his brother William was the oldest and that he died in 1747 at 32 years old. That means William was born ca. 1715. So James could not have been born earlier than that. The sons are listed in in the History of Litchfield as "William, James, and Alexander" and I make an assumption that they are listed in order of birth since the Topsham VR's seem to place a good emphasis on the three brothers when identifying descendants (remarking that one child was a son of one brother and then stating that the father was a brother of the other two). The Topsham VR's unfortunately provide no dates on the births of most of the Potter clan. The History of Litchfield is also absent on most VR's on the early generations.

This profile originally gave a marriage year of 1734 but is actually 1743. To me, it just appears a simple mix up of numbers. An estimated birth year of 1711 would make sense if it was assumed he was at least 21 to marry based on the birth year that appears now, (1734-21=1711). The template used here is that the birth year is estimated. Since we now know that he wasn't married in 1734, the estimated birth year is off.

Since his older brother William has a better estimated birth year of 1715, this profile could simply show "after 1715" since we know James is a younger brother. The biggest concern I have is from his brother Alexander who died in 1800. I have conflicting records on him showing he was as young as 38 when he died (highly unlikely unless the record is for a later descendant and not his brother) and as old as 89 when he passed. A record done in August 1980 (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/61897/images/FS_007586439_01165) shows he was 89 but an earlier record done in 1929 (Topsham VR, Vol II, pg 264 give the source of the grave record of the First Parish Burying Ground) shows he was 80. If he truly were 80 when he died, and he was the third child, he would be estimated to be born about 1720 and James would then be born sometime between 1715 and 1720.

Definitely some conflicting information can be found and original records are certainly lacking.

Shall we change James's birth year to 1718 and Alexander's to 1720?

Those would be good estimates.

I've changed both of their birth years. Thanks for your suggestions!

Now another issue: The one source I have for James, the "History of Litchfield", says that he and his sons moved to Litchfield in 1782. But currently his death date is shown as 1768, in Topsham. That information came in with a merge, with the only source an Ancestry tree. Any objection to my changing his death information to "after 1782" in Litchfield?

No objection at all, seems very reasonable to me.