040 - 15 Samuel 155 - another emigrant to USA - 5

The evidence

• Samuel who married Martha Preston has a gravestone stating he was born 25 February 1833, 2 years after Samuel 155 was born.
• We have checked the original baptism and Bishop’s transcripts documents and are clear that Samuel 155 was born in 1831 in East Ruston, and baptised on 6 March 1831.
• We can find no other Samuel Gotts born around that date that we cannot track later in life. The age of Samuel arriving by ship is 22, so born 1831.
• The ages of the whole family vary in the census returns, but for farm labourers the year of birth may not be the most vital information to give people. Many changed their ages to suit their situation, whether to appear older than their wives or qualify for state benefits. What is more likely is that people will remember their birthdays. 25 February 1831 was a Thursday, so it is unlikely that Samuel’s mother Charlotte would able to baptise him that Sunday, so Samuel was baptised the next Sunday, 6 March 1831. We don’t know whether Samuel thought or let it be known that he was born in 1833, or whether the relatives who provided the death and gravestone information were not completely sure of Samuel’s age.
• Samuel is only 10 miles away from his first cousin George 134 (son of John 106 & Phyllis Shingles) in Orleans County, which would be a natural starting point for him emigrating.
• Lastly, we now have DNA links from descendants of Samuel in USA to Samuel’s siblings in Norfolk, with sufficiently strong matches to have confidence in our attribution that it is Samuel 155 who married Martha Preston.