Inspirational Message

Inspirational Message

Sunday, March 9, 2014

52 Ancestors: #10 Mehitable Arms

Mehitable  Arms

1786 - 1851

I am intrigued by her unusual name, Mehitable.  She was born in Franklin County, Massachusetts on the 22nd of October in 1786.  All I have for her parents are their names, Thomas Arms and Polly Coolidge.
It is quite likely that Thomas fought in the American Revolution.  I went to my favorite free place to search for family records and the first hit on my search was a birth and christening record from Deerfield, Franklin, Massachusetts:
Name:Thomas Arms
Gender:Male
Christening Date:06 Aug 1758
Christening Place:DEERFIELD,FRANKLIN,MASSACHUSETTS
Birth Date:03 Aug 1759
Birthplace:
Death Date:
Name Note:
Race:
Father's Name:Thomas Arms
Father's Birthplace:
Father's Age:
Mother's Name:Lydia
Mother's Birthplace:
Mother's Age:
Indexing Project (Batch) Number:C50172-1
System Origin:Massachusetts-ODM
GS Film number:0873741 IT 3
Reference ID:
Massachusetts, Births and Christenings, 1639-1915," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/VQXL-XF3 : accessed 09 Mar 2014), Thomas Arms, 03 Aug 1759.

This is a good likely match for the man I am looking for, I need to see if their is a marriage record for this Thomas Arms. When I click on the Massachusetts marriages link I find something interesting...here is a marriage for Thomas Arms son of Thomas Arms and Polly Coolidge. 

Name:Thomas Arms
Birth Date:
Birthplace:
Age:
Spouse's Name:
Spouse's Birth Date:
Spouse's Birthplace:
Spouse's Age:
Event Date:12 Feb 1785
Event Place:Montague, Franklin, Massachusetts
Father's Name:Thomas
Mother's Name:Polly Coolidge
Spouse's Father's Name:
Spouse's Mother's Name:
Race:
Marital Status:
Previous Wife's Name:
Spouse's Race:
Spouse's Marital Status:
Spouse's Previous Husband's Name:
Indexing Project (Batch) Number:M50178-1
System Origin:Massachusetts-EASy
GS Film number:873740
Reference ID:

Citing this Record

"Massachusetts, Marriages, 1695-1910," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/FCMJ-6WG : accessed 09 Mar 2014), Thomas Arms and , 12 Feb 1785.
 The marriage date is 12 Feb 1785 in Montague, Franklin, Massachusetts.  Since Mehitable was born in  October of 1786, I would say that Polly Coolidge was more likely her grandmother, not her mother.  My source for my information was a book written by another genealogist.  I need to double check that I added the correct information to my PAF file.

The name of the book I purchased is The Rhea and Van Natta Families and Their Ancestors,  compiled by Lois Canaday Hupfer published in 1997. The Arms family is found on page 123 it states in the opening paragraph, "Thomas Arms, Jr was born August 3, 1759, Deerfield, Massachusetts son of Thomas and Lydia (Alvord) Arms."  This is pretty close to the record above, of course their is an obvious error in the record above as you cannot be christened before you are born.  According to her book Thomas Arms Jr married Polly Coolidge on the 12th of February in 1785.  Hmmmm.  Might need to do some more checking on this one!

From the same book the author states that Mehitable Arms was the fifth generation of her family to live in Deerfield, Massachusetts.  Polly Arms died in June of 1794 in Deerfield.  Thomas Jr. married  Hannah Boyden on the 25th of October in 1795 in Sunderland, Massachusetts.

I downloaded the digital version of  History of Western Massachusetts the counties of Hampden, Hampshire, Franklin and Berkshire, by Josiah Gilbert Holland. No Arms families were included in this book.  I have conducted quite a bit of research in this area of Massachusetts on my Graves family that originated there.   Now I need to take a closer look at this Arms family.

Mehitable married in New York to Royal Harvey Hazeltine/Haseltine who was  born in Vermont on the 1st of March in 1786..   They had a family of 10 children between 1808 and 1830.  The first three were born in NY and the remaining children were born in Indiana. Eventually this family ended up in Green County, Missouri.    Death dates are unknown to me for Royal and Mehitable, I have only a note of 1851 for both of them.   

As you can see, genealogy is never finished.  If I hadn't signed on for this 52 Ancestors challenge, this line of research would probably never be verified.  

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