Chris: Yes, an abstraction is a summary of what the one doing the abstraction considers to be the pertinent details of a document. In the abstraction I found [http://members.aol.com/hugahusky/index/sackwill.htm] the one doing the abstraction appears to have believed that the Josiah Crego mentioned was not a member of the Sackett family and, therefore, left him out of the abstraction. This is an example of the problem we face in using abstractions as the main source for our information. [Remember how you objected when I presented the lawyer's abstraction of the title search of the Louisiana Purchase?] (:>D Concerning the wording of Richard's will found in Weygant; we have found that Weygant did not always give a word for word transcription of the documents he included in his book so it appears that he may have left out the phrase "my beloved son" before Josiah Crego. For example: On 13 Oct 2001Ted Mudge posted a transcription of the will of #4-John Sackett of Westfield in which Ted points out that Weygant changed the wording some to modernize the text. Therefore, we could assume that Weygant did the same with the will of Richard Sackett. If Liesa is able to find a microfilm of the will it will help greatly. Regards, Thurmon On Tue, 4 Nov 2003 19:39:23 -0000 "Chris Sackett" <chris@sackett.org.uk> writes: > Blanche, Thurmon, > > "Curiouser and curiouser!" cried Alice. ..... > > It looks to me that we have THREE versions of Capt Richard's will. > Weygant > says (p59) that the will was recorded both at Albany and New York > City which > might account for TWO versions. But THREE!!? > > Thurmon, I don't think you said where your version came from. This > might > help. On the face of it, it would appear that Weygant's version > would be the > later version as it contains additional wording. As far as I can see > your > version and Weygant's are the same with the exception of Weygant's > containing the additional words "... my house, homestead, orchards > and > meadows and all my books. I leave to my son Josiah Crego, and to the > heirs > of my daughter Mary Dean deceased, ..." between the words "I leave > to my son > John after my wife's decease ..." and "... and to my daughter > Catherine > ...". There are two additional bits of wording in Thurmon's version. > In line > 3 the wording is "the use of my home lot" - Weygant's version does > not have > the word "home". Thurmon's version also names the witnesses which, > interestingly, include none other than Richard's old friend Josiah > Crego. > > The version quoted by Roy Crego has further variations. His version > has > "..the use and improvement of my homelot..." - the other versions do > not > mention "and improvement". His version also has slipped into it the > word > "wellbeloved" to describe his son Josias Crego. Roy Crego has > Josias; > Weygant has Josiah. These differences are probably not significant. > Roy > Crego also names the witnesses, - as in Thurmon's version except > that Henry > omse appears as Henry Nase. > > Thurmon's version is described as an abstract of the will, meaning, > I > assume, that it is not to be taken as a literal copy but rather as a > summary > of the wording. Crego's version is obviously a summary apart from a > couple > of short quoted extracts. Weygant's version states "It reads as > follows:" > which I would take to mean it was a literal copy. > > It seems to me there were either two versions of the will or there > has been > an error in transcription. If there were two wills then Thurmon has > the > earlier one, the additional bequests to son Josiah Crego and to the > heirs of > deceased daughter Mary Dean being added as an afterthought. If there > was > only one will then the error appears to be in Thurmon's version in > that a > whole line might have been left out in the transcription. > > The possibility of the will being altered at the last minute is > explainable. > It would not be unusual for a testator to forget the heirs of a > deceased > daughter until maybe being reminded by another family member. It > would also > be perfectly understandable if Richard had left Josiah Crego out of > the > first version of his will if Josiah Crego were in fact only a > stepson and > not his natural son. > > Thurmon, I'm afraid you are well and truly side tracked now! Over to > you. > Where did your other version come from? > > Best.. > Chris > > > ==== SACKETT Mailing List ==== > Tried the RootsWeb Archives and Search Engine on the Web yet...? > http://lists.rootsweb.com/~archiver/lists/ > http://searches.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl > > ============================== > To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy > records, go to: > http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237 > >