Daniel Heaton

Curator's Note:

Familysearch incorrectly marries Ruth Lewis to a Daniel Heaton of New Jersey. Sources cited below and the Connecticut VR clearly show this Ruth Wadsworth marrying Elisha Lewis in a time frame that would make it impossible for her to marry Daniel Heaton. Please examine the entry below, from https://www.heatonbrown.com/p366.htm :

"Ruth Wadsworth may have been the name of the woman who married Daniel Heaton as reported by a 2nd great grandson of Daniel's in his Sons of the Revolution application based upon Daniel's son David's service. Ruth may have been from Connecticut, but more likely was from New Jersey, and they probably married there. Heaton Families II stated that Daniel married Ruth Wadsworth in Connecticut in 1734, and that she was born in Framingham, Massachusetts on 14 April 1711 to John Wadsworth and Elizabeth Stanley. Well.... it turns out that John and Elizabeth Wadsworth had a daughter Ruth, born on 14 April 1711 in Farmington, Connecticut. However, their Ruth Wadsworth married Elisha Lewis on 18 April 1739 in Farmington, and died on 15 October 1776 in Farmington. Ruth's husband, Elisha Lewis was born on 23 July 1710 in Farmington to Nathaniel and Abigail (Ashley) Lewis, and died in Farmington on 13 May 1769. Both Elisha Lewis and his wife, Ruth (Wadsworth) Lewis were buried in Memento Mori Cemetery, Farmington, Connecticut.

One of the things we've learned as we've improved our genealogical problem solving skills is how tempting it is to jump to the wrong conclusions in our desire to "connect the dots". We're guessing that somewhere along the line of Daniel's descendants, someone stated his wife's name was "Ruth" or even "Ruth Wadsworth", maybe from one of the Wadsworth families of New Jersey. Over time, that "information" has been passed along in the Heaton family, with someone even selecting the Connecticut origins for Ruth we now find published in the Heaton Families II as fact and, sadly, duplicated hundreds of times on websites and other electronic genealogical trees. It's sad because we realize that once the untruth reaches the internet, it never goes away.2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,1"

The complete webpage is available under sources. -- Jessica M. German, Geni Curator