Say it ain't so

I was startled to find the probate records and will for Isaac Snow of Rochester, MA indicating he died in 1789. I had him in my database as dying in August 19, 1812 at about 93 years old. I clicked my source footnote only to discover the DAR ancestor database was the source. I checked to see if their listing had any caveats posted, but there weren't any. The birthdate, wife's name and two child names were the same. A quick check at ancestry.com found one public trees with the 1812 date, but most of the records pointed to the 1789 death. I popped over to find-a-grave and found a photo of a tombstone in Rochester, MA for an Isaac Snow who died August 19, 1812. The catch? The tombstone was inscribed with his age of 23. 

In my opinion, that's a pretty bad mistake. I admit I have the advantage of the internet to help me find strong sources, but I thought the whole point of the application process for lineage societies was to screen for things like this. I mean really, I'm just an amateur and not trying to apply for any lineage societies (yet). Now I wonder what the point would be.

Alas, is there no one I can trust? 

Millions and Millions

I almost missed the NY land records on Family Search. I've looked at the NY listings there so many times over the few years, I can't believe I just discovered these records just a few days ago. I guess I wasn't quite ready to look at deeds. I know part of it is that Family Search hasn't indexed them yet, so seeing "Browse through 8,129,310 images" seemed daunting. However, as I discovered, when you know the county and you click through, you can see they've imaged old index books. Still, more work than a search engine, but the results are already exciting enough to energize me.

Here's part of a deed with my 4x great-grandparents, David and Phebe Snow as the sellers:

I've found David Snow indexed several more times so far. I think it's going to narrow down the time period when I search for his probate record. And I've found a lot of Murrays indexed, so maybe I'll finally find the link back to Connecticut I've been looking for.

But first, I have to create a spreadsheet that will help me keep track of this research. Now that I've found these records, I don't want to get so excited that I ignore a proper researching process. Because I don't want to have to do this twice!