Desire Gardner

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Havens-162

• Born 1690 in Jamestown, Rhode Island
• Daughter of George Havens Sr. and Eleanor (Thurston) Terry
• Sister of Desire Virtual Person (Havens) Gardiner, George Havens Jr., Content (Havens) Payne, Jonathan Havens, William Havens, Patience (Havens) Hans, Ruth (Havens) Mather, John Havens and Abigail Havens
• Wife of Henry Gardiner Jr — married 4 Aug 1710 (to 17 Dec 1722) in North Kingstown, Kings, Rhode Island
• Mother of Hannah (Gardiner) Coit, Henry Gardiner III and Desire Gardiner
• Died before Dec 1722 in North Kingston, Washington, Rhode Island

In October of 2020, Randolph Beebe published an essay in the Wikitree Freespace pages entitled Desire Havens, Wife of Lion Gardiner or Henry Gardiner? [1] This essay is an in depth study of the historical and genealogical record of the life of Desire Havens, and was inspired by an existing data conflict in the Wikitree profile pages which offered two incompatible adult identities for Desire Havens. This profile is one of the two conflicting profiles and identifies Desire, daughter of George Havens Sr. and Eleanor Thurston to have been born about 1690 and to have been married to Henry Gardiner Jr. of Kingtown, Rhode Island from 1710 to 1733. The second Wikitree profile for Desire (Havens) Gardiner also declared her to be the daughter of George Havens and Eleanor Thurston, but offers a 1668 birth date, and identifies her husband as Lion Gardiner Sr. of East Hampton, New York, to whom she was married from 1688 to 1723. It may be noted that these marriages overlap in time and were lived out in two different states, therefore it is impossible for these marriages to have been a first marriage then a second marriage; thus these two identities are fully incompatible and logic demands that only one of the two options may be correct..

Since it is impossible for both marriage scenarios to be correct, and both marriage assertions are supported with what appears to be credible data, the essay then examines the body of internet accessible evidence in an attempt to answer the question regarding which of the two asserted husbands is most likely to be the correct choice. The short answer to this question is that the evidence supports, with near certainty, the assertion that Desire Havens, daughter of George Havens and Eleanor Thurston was married to Henry Gardiner Jr. of Kingstown, Rhode Island; whereas, the evidence provides only a vanishingly small probability that she married Lion Gardiner Sr. instead. Please refer to the essay for details of the analysis of the evidence, and for access to a large body of supporting source evidence affirming this conclusion.