While working on updating sources for some of my lines, I came across an entry that looked promising for my Eayres line. In 1719, my ancestor Margaret Eayres (or Ayrs or Eayre) married Daniel Wills in Burlington County, NJ. Her father was Richard Eayres, but I had never seen any evidence as to her mother’s name, so I was interested to see entries in World Connect for a wife for Richard, one Elizabeth Rowden Brock. After some further research, though, I realized that this was just another case of sloppiness on some one’s part as Elizabeth was the mother of my ancestor and her brothers. Actually, she should have been listed as Elizabeth Rowden, as Mr. Brock was her first husband, by whom she had several children. She married Richard Eayres in 1704, and the entries in World Connect play fast and loose with the birth dates of Richard’s children in order to make this connection appear to work, but the fact remains that Margaret, Thomas and Richard were all the children of Richard Eayres’ first wife, whose name may have been Margaret.
One of the World Connect databases, hereinafter referred to as TRIP, that shows Elizabeth as Margaret’s mother also has some entries further down the that are rather questionable. Margaret and Daniel Wills had a son, Noah, born about 1721, who was married 4/17/1746 at Christ Church in Philadelphia to Mary Harrison, daughter of William Harrison and Ann Hugg. The TRIP database however, lists Noah’s wife as Mary Ogborn, with a marriage date of 4/17/1747. Hardly likely as Mary Harrison and Noah Wills (or Wells as the name more often appears) had six children before 1756. One of these children was Harrison Wells, who was left land by his aunt, Priscilla Harrison, to provide a home for his mother, Mary Wells, in her widowhood, as Noah had died in 1758. Mary is also named in her father’s will of 1762.
When looking at a database like TRIP, it is actually easy to see why mistakes happen - the only source listed for the records in question is a genealogy of the Haines family, yet another reminder why primary sources are significantly better than others.