Am I right that this marriage had a recording error?

Question

I believe this birth record

https://www.wikitree.com/photo/jpg/Wilson-34550

may be showing the birth of my 5-great-grandmother Elizabeth Wilson. The image is of a page of the Swansea, Mass. town books (sent to me by the Swansea town clerk, with permission given to publish it).  

Elizabeth's gravestone says she was born in 1760. Her adopted mother and later sister-in-law stated in testimony that Elizabeth's father was James Wilson of Swansea. The above-linked record of Elizabeth born to James and Ruth at Swansea seems to say she was born 27 November 1763, which is close to 1760, so okay.

There's a problem: Elizabeth definitely married in 1775 and recorded a child in 1777.  That makes 1763 a little unbelievable.  1760 works a lot better.  

But there's an out -- the record appears to say

"Born :November :ye: 27: 1763: a Wednesday"

(That is also how Rounds transcribed the record in his book of transcriptions.) November 27 of 1763 was not a Wednesday, nor was November 27 of 1760, 1761, 1762, or 1764.  

Also, James and Ruth recorded two other children at Swansea: Agnes in 1759 and William May Wilson on 5 August 1763, "a Fryday" (and that really was a Friday).  
William was born just four months before Elizabeth's purported birthdate.

I don't see another way to read the handwriting that makes Elizabeth's record internally consistent (i.e., it really was a Wednesday) and consistent with the birth of a brother in August of 1763.  So I believe it was just recorded wrong.

But I'm throwing this out here in case one of the experts can come up with an explanation I'm missing. 

Answer 1

Fascinating!  It's hard to comment on the "appearance" without a visual, but sometimes I've noticed the numeral '1' has a serif on it that could be construed as a '7'. Can you compare the '7' in '27' with the '7' in the 17x3 part?  Also, '6' and '5' can be similar.  So, while not an expert, and flying without instruments here, could it be that the date was 21 Nov 1753, a Wednesday!  That would solve the space-between-births issue as well.  I don't know if it creates other problems.  But I'm pretty sure that the recorder of the information would not have randomly written "Wednesday"  I would pursue an error in transcription or interpretation theory and stick with Wednesday.  I think it's great that you went to the trouble to confirm the day of the week!

Comments

The visual is attached to the profile as an image.

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In the image, the 1 in the year 1763 has no serif, so for that reason it doesn't seem that the day is 21.  But that's the sort of thinking that is helpful!

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The year also looks as though it could be 1769, but the 27 of that yeas was also not a Wednesday .. and would not work well with the marriage year.

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Yeah, I just realized that and came back.  Learning, still learning.

But you're right.  The digits are actually very clear.  Hope you solve it

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I just had a similar experience - different century and different continent but similar   In the Colonial Families of Long Island, etc, it is written for Mary Bayley (p. 293) that she was born on 13 October 1653, it "being Thursday betweene two & three of the Clock".   I went to day calculation app and it came up a Monday -- with a note that, of course, with the Julian calendar, it would have been a Thursday.  

I realize that  your dilemma would have come under the Gregorian calendar, but I'm throwing this out there just as something to munch on when dates aren't quite what we expect.  And of course, the caveat, that not all apps were created equal.  

Answer 2

Too bad the image is for just the one entry and not the full page in order to see if the clerk always made a 3 that way or had an idiosyncratic way of making a 0, but from that snippet is sure looks like a 3. Also, any idea if it is the original book or an official copy?

Comments

I have the full page -- I just usually crop to remove anything that's not the actual entry.  But come to think of it, in this the context of the handwriting throughout the page is important to this entry, so maybe I should include the whole page.  I'll attach it now.

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Okay, I attached the image. The text matches that in the transcriptions of H. L. Peter Rounds, who said he transcribed the original town books, but I don't know if this is a copy of those books or if those books had stuff entered from older sources. It is clear from just this page that not all records were entered contemporaneously with the events. Rounds says this Book D is "Births and Marriages 1762-1797", but there are several births stretching back into the 1750s in this part, so I don't understand where 1762 came from.

Answer 3

Is there any possibility that this is old style dating (Julian calendar)?  

The Quakers, who maintained the Julian calendar, styled dates differently, but what about the way those dates were used by others?

"The Gregorian calendar was first introduced in 1582, but it took more than 300 years for all the different countries to change from the Julian Calendar. September 1752 in North America was exceptionally short, skipping the 11 days from the third to the 13th." From Julian to Gregorian Calendar - Time and Date

Do we have any idea whether it was universally adopted in all the colonies?