Susan Avery Writes:
Managers of Ruth Steelman,
Ruth was NOT a Thurston - there is NO RECORD supporting this speculation. Someone put it online years ago and hundreds of people just copied it into their trees without doing any research. Well I decided to do some research. I found that there were NO Thurstons AT ALL in Kent Co. DE or even the entire STATE of DE at this time. And the ONLY Ruth Thurston at this time period although not exactly the correct time to be Matthias' wife, lived in Massachusetts and she married someone else entirely. There were literally no other Ruth Thurstons anywhere in the 1700s in the country. Then recently someone has even invented parents for her - it is completely false and ridiculous and makes me extremely upset. This name needs to be removed from her name - she is simply and ONLY Ruth - no other name. Because so little is known about Matthias Steelmans origins (there is a missing 2 generations between him and his great-grandparents Hans Mansson & Ella Stille) we don't even know if Ruth was his only wife or was the mother of all the children. We can only guess that she is since we don't have any other names to go on either. Thank you for removing Thurston from her name. I really really do not want this myth to perpetuate on into the future as some kind of "fact" when it very much is NOT!!! I need your help. I've already informed Ancestry and Wikitree and tried to on FamilySearch but that is a joke since anyone and everyone can just come back in and put her back on the tree - they have made such a mess of my tree I can't even stand to look at it there. Please help me, help all the Steelmans by eliminating this myth. There is no basis in reality - I challenge you to look as I did. There is nothing to find in that time period and location. Thank you
