More Arms Confusion Abounds

I discovered two books published by members of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, Vital Records of Deerfield, Massachusetts to 1850 and Vital Records of Conway, Massachusetts to 1850. The first published by Thomas W. Baldwin in 1920 and the second in 1943. The Conway book has a † note next to the marriage of Thomas Arms and Hannah Boyden that states "Marriages marked with a † are recorded in the "Town Copy," pages 391-392, under the caption, "A Record of Marriages supposed to have been performed by Rev. John Emerson at the dates indicated in the margin." The marginal dates are the same as the first dates of corresponding intentions which appear as follows: "June 29th 1792 Marriage is intended . . . 20th July 1792 the above has been Published". The marriage is recorded "Thomas Jr. of Deerfield and Hannah Boyden of C, Oct. 3[sic, int. ent. Oct. 3 and pub. Oct. 18], I795†." in the book on page 121.  I have also found an entry for Mehitabel Arms' birth on 22 October 1786 and the parents are listed as Thomas and Hannah. I also found an index entry that states Thomas Jr. is the son of Thomas and Polly Coolidge.  If you look back at one of my previous posts, Find-A-Grave has a memorial that has Polly as the first wife of the Thomas who married Hannah Boyden.
I found images on familysearch.org:
"Massachusetts, Town Clerk, Vital and Town Records, 1627-2001," images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1951-31531-4313-48?cc=2061550&wc=MX1D-XM9:353350001,353367901,353367902 : accessed 12 Oct 2014), Franklin > Deerfield > Births, marriages, deaths 1675-1844 vol 1.

The interesting thing about this book, is the index. 

Notice the column heading above the first set of numbers. Noted as O.B. in the left column and Old Book in the right column. This book is a transcription of the old book. Sigh.

I just hope the clerk who copied the books was careful to double and triple check her work. The images I found back up what is in the books I found. I still have a mystery to solve.

Arms are up, well, maybe not.

My previous post is a perfect example of not checking all possible sources before coming to a conclusion on the evidence.  A cousin sent me some links to online books written about the Arms and Alvord families. They all read pretty much the same and most likely came from the same source.

To prove the accuracy of any research requires some leg work.  First of all, how are the graves laid out in the cemetery?  Those buried next to one another could be a clue to their relationship. Finding a map of the cemetery plots would be most desirable.  Then there is the ever re-use of given names. For the Arms family, William and Thomas are repeated through the generations. These families were from Massachusetts and much research has been done on those who lived in the counties of this state. I ordered a roll of microfilm that has arrived at the local FHC that I will be viewing this next week, it is only open on Wednesday evening. 

The Arms were a side trip on my route to prove the line from myself back to Paul Hazelton. I will be exploring the Arms line more in the near future.

Thank you to my cousin for disagreeing with my conclusion and pointing me in another direction.

Stay tuned for more!