Darrell, I am in complete agreement with you and can elaborate on one point: >Thomas' father John is supposed by some to have had a wife, Mary >Neeld/Nield, but not only was this Mary most likely married to the John >Dutton who settled in Pennsylvania, but I recently read evidence that she >married a Neeld/Nield *after* the death of her husband John Dutton. Again, >my sources are not readily at hand, but the burden of proof is on making >the connection. That is correct. Mary (Darlington) Dutton, widow of John Dutton of Aston, Pennsylvania, and origianlly from Overton, Cheshire, England, later married John Neeld (the most usual spelling - other variants being Neelde and Nield) whose land immediately adjoined the Duttons in Aston. This is all well reported in Gilbert Cope's Genealogy of the Dutton Family of Pennsylvania, originally printed in 1871. In addition, I have in my personal possession a number of the original parchment deeds between Mary Dutton Neeld and her children by John Dutton. I have posted some of the full text of these deeds here in DUTTON-L. >I have Thomas' birth circa 1619, based on Edward F. Johnson, compiler, >"Woburn Records of Births, Deaths, and Marriages 1640-1873," (Woburn: >Andrews, Cutler, & Co., 1890), Part III Marriages, pg. 284 in a footnote >under surname Tottingham, "In the suit of Capt. Johnson vs. Ensign John >Carter, Dec. 1658 ... witnesses were ... Thomas Dutton [aged] about 39 ..." >citing "County Court Records, Vol. I., page 161. Dec. 1658." I have his >death at 22 January 1686/1687, after Cutter. > >I would give miscellaneous body parts to be shown primary evidence of the >ancestry of Thomas Dutton of Reading, Woburn, and Billerica, Massachusetts >in the late 17th Century. I have been looking for a quarter century, and >have UNlearned more than I have proved. Hopefully this mournful trend can >be reversed. This is a quote of the first two paragraphs from page 107 of Cope's book where he briefly discusses the "Duttons of Connecticut" ---- "Some of the Dutton family emigrated to New England more than fifty years prior to the settlement of Pennsylvania, and their descendants are now scattered all over the United States. "Savage, in his 'Genealogical Dictionary of New England,' states that John Dutton arrived in 1630, but he (Savage) knew not where he seated himself. Thomas Dutton of Woburn, perhaps a son of John, was born about 1621 and lived for some time in Reading, where, by his wife Susan, it is thought he had....." ---- Cope was pretty meticulous in his genealogical work. Note that he does not state a definite relationship between Thomas Dutton and John Dutton; he simply says "perhaps a son of John". I am aware of no proof of this father-son relationship. Are you? Can anyone here offer any primary evidence of this? Not only is there no proof of John Dutton's specific ancestry in England, there is no proof that Thomas Dutton of Woburn, from whom the New England Duttons descend, was the son of John in any case! The only citations for this supposed ancestry I have ever seen have been in web sites. I have emailed owners of such web-based material asking for their sources. The responses I have received have all cited other web-based genealogies. I have not been offered one primary source. As best I have been able to ascertain the "original" web-based genealogy that others subsequently copied has been taken off the web. Its owner has not responded to my request for some evidence of the link. I think what we have is a lot of very well-meaning people taking unproven assertions of a possible link and turning that into a definite line of descent. It doesn't help matters that commonly used genealogy software doesn't allow for a distinction in charts between relationships that are "guessed at," "probable," and "definite". Thus, what the owner of a datafile may understand about the link is not transferred to someone who simply copies the file or its data, assuming that it must all be equally proven and real. I don't know that I would go as far as you and "give miscellaneous body parts" :-) for some real proof, but it sure would be great to find some. Until then, I am more than a skeptic. It seems to me we are dealing with unfortunately propagated disinformation. Doug