I've been working on the John Gibson ("Not Getting the Revolutionary Cart Ahead of the Horse") who "disappeared" from Ashby, Mass. around 1800. And I've come to a conclusion.
I need offline resources to answer this question--or to at least make that next step. I'll leave the details and citations to a later post. This post is more about process.
Assuming the family history cited in the post is correct (and I have no reason to conclude that the names of John's children are wrong), it seems likely that at least two individuals with names the same as John Gibson's children lived in Addison and Rutland Counties in Vermont in the 1800-1820 time frame. This is the same time frame that Sarah (Gibson) Sargent and her family lived there. There's also a John Gibson in 1810 in Pittsford, Rutland, Vermont of the age to be the John Gibson mentioned in the "Cart Ahead of the Horse Post"). That's a lot of coincidence. And, if it is the Gibson family living near the Sargents, then it makes a little more sense why the Sargents settled there when there were no other Sargents nearby.
I need to see if there are any land deeds, court, town, or probate/estate records on this John in Rutland County, Vermont.The hope is that they will connect him to his children, particularly daughters with married names (ie. Sarah Sargent). Searching online compilations probably is not going to answer my question. These records do not appear to be online in digital format.
I've added this work on John to my list for when I'm at the Family History Library.
Another time when one needs to realize when the online sources have told you what they are going to tell you.
And this time they are telling me that I need to look at those local records in Vermont.
