Daniel Eaton (1639 - 1716)

My seventh great-grandfather.

Born: 20 January 1639 at Watertown, Middlesex, Massachusetts Bay Colony, Colonial America
Died: 20 July 1716 probably at Reading, Middlesex County, Massachusetts

Father:  William Eaton
Mother:  Martha Jenkins

Siblings:
   Mary Eaton, 1628
   William Eaton, Jr., 1628
   Martha Eaton, 1630
   Abigail Eaton, 1631
   John Eaton, 1635
   Samuel Eaton, 1639
   Mary Eaton, 1643

Married: to Mary Ingalls on 21 December 1664 at Reading, Massachusetts

Children:
   John Eaton, 1665
   David Eaton, 1667
   Daniel Eaton, 1667
   William Eaton, 1668
   Ann Eaton, 1671
   Mary Eaton, 1672
   Martha Eaton, 1673
   Priscilla Eaton, 1676
   Daniel Eaton, 1678
   Mehitable Eaton, 1679/80

Daniel may have married a second time to Abigail Herbert, but I have no other information on this.

(One source, which I've thought was a good one in the past, claims that Daniel's wife was actually a Mary Collins, born in 1664 and died 24 February 1682. She says she can find no other information about this Mary. Since the other sources all list Mary Ingalls, I'm going with that, but it gets confusing, as I'll explain below.)


Mary Ingalls  (1642 - 1706)

Born: 1642 in Reading, Middlesex, Massachusetts Bay Colony
Died:  1706 in Reading

Father:  Edmund Ingalls
Mother:  Ann Telbe

Siblings:
   Elizabeth Ingalls, 1619
   Robert Ingalls, 1620
   Faith Ingalls, 1622
   John Ingalls, 1624
   Sarah Ingalls, 1626
   Henry Ingalls, 1627
   Samuel Ingalls, 1632
   Joseph Ingalls, 1638
 

Why I make the choices I do when the facts seem muddled:
In an attempt to be as accurate as possible, I am doing extensive internet searches for each of the people I list on this genealogy. Often, I find that one site gives me one set of dates and places and another site gives completely different information. What to do? I try to find out as much as I can, sometimes even searching the relatives of our relatives. (I suppose that they are actually our relatives, too.) For example, the source with the most complete information says that Daniel married Mary Ingalls, while the other site says Mary Collins. But there is no other information to confirm Mary Collins. With Mary Ingalls, however, I can find her parents and her siblings, all with names, birth dates and places, etc. So it just makes more sense that Mary Ingalls is our grandmother. But, because I respect the information I usually get from the other site, I shared what it had, just in case.

It can get worse. One source gives Mary Ingalls an earlier birth date and says she was married to Daniel's brother John. But this Mary Ingalls was born six years earlier and in another city and county. What to do? I went with the information most likely to be correct.

But there are other inconsistencies, too. For example, one site says that Daniel was born in Staple, Kent, England, and another says Watertown. Then I found information that says Daniel's father came to Massachusetts in 1937. Since Daniel wasn't born until 1639, it makes sense that he must have been born in Massachusetts. One of the reasons that I list siblings is so anyone so inclined can use that information to do further research to verify or disprove the information. Also, when I get back a few centuries, it is very interesting to see that, for instance, every child in a family did something that caused his or her name to go down in history. I give us a better picture of the lives of our ancestors.