Death in the woods

There are three lessons to be learned from this post:

• Many old newspapers are digitized and available online, and are wonderful resources for finding information on your ancestors.

• If you don't find an article online about something or someone you're looking for, keep checking back. Databases are always being added to.

• It's a bad idea to try walking home in freezing weather when you're drunk.

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GenealogyBank.com: confirming the parentage of Mary WEBSTER

I've been using this site for the past couple of months, and in my opinion, it's worth joining even if you find nothing pertaining to your own family history-- simply because you can read newspapers up to 200 years old. It's fascinating to actually read about the Civil War as it was happening-- history in real time.

A post by Heather Wilkinson Rojo, in which she writes of her own experience with GenealogyBank.com, inspired me to tell of a discovery I recently made.

Mary "Polly" WEBSTER married John WINSLOW II on 14 Apr 1796 in Kingston, New Hampshire; they were my 4th great-grandparents.

According to every family tree on Ancestry.com and every other private gedcom online that I found, Mary was the daughter of Captain Jacob WEBSTER (15 Feb 1745 - 21 Apr 1836), a veteran of the American War for Independence, and his wife Elizabeth GEORGE (d. 13 March 1824).

The problem was, I had never been able to find evidence of this.

According to The Vital Records of Kingston New Hampshire 1664-1994 by Judith Arseneault, there happened to be two Mary Websters born in December of 1772 in Kingston, just six days apart: the Mary who was the daughter of Jacob and Elizabeth was born on 11 Dec 1772, and another Mary, who was the daughter of John and Martha Webster, was born 17 Dec 1772.

How did I know that the Mary Webster who married John Winslow (in other words, my ancestor) was the daughter of Jacob and Elizabeth, and not the daughter of John and Martha?

I didn't. I tried posting an inquiry to an Ancestry.com message board, but no luck there. It seemed that unless I could find Jacob's will or something, I would never know for sure.

Then after I joined GenealogyBank.com, I found Mary Webster Winslow's death notice, which appeared in the New Hampshire Patriot on 20 Feb 1861:

It confirmed that she was indeed the daughter of Captain Jacob Webster, and highlights her father's service in the war.

It is through Jacob, via both his parents, that I'm descended from Salem "witches" Mary (PERKINS) BRADBURY and Susannah (NORTH) MARTIN.

Line: Jacob WEBSTER - Mary WEBSTER - William WINSLOW - James W. WINSLOW - Bessie WINSLOW - Dorothy PALMER - S. HOWES - Me.