This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/HBRBAIB/1161.1 Message Board Post: As an update to my earlier message, thanks to another researcher, I believe I have sufficient elements of proof to assert that Samuel O. Sweet was indeed the eight child of Ira Sweet and Sarah Hadsell. An entry dated 13 May 1847 in the Pike County, Illinois Register of Deeds identifies the" heirs at law of Ira Sweet" Alll three daughters are named along with their husbands as well as five sons: Ira A. Sweet; Nathan Sweet; Samuel Sweet; Rensselaer Sweet and Andrew Sweet. In the case of Andrew, I believe his full name was Thomas Andrew Sweet. In the case of Sylvania Sweet who married Nathaniel Smith, Nathaniel is named along with his wife Louisa. Accordingly, I believe that Sylvania's full name was either Sylvania Louisa or Louisa Sylvania Sweet. I first identified Sylvania from another secondary source "Portrait & Biographical Album of Pike and Calhoun Counties, Illinois" Biographical Publishing Co. Chicago, 1891 which identified her as the daughter of Ira Sweet and Sarah Hadsell. Further supporting my claim of a familial relationship between Samuel O. Sweet and this family is the fact that Samuel and Nathan's names appear consecutively on the 1850 Census living in Martinsburg Township, Pike County, Illinois. Although both names are spelled SWEAT rather then SWEET on the Census, both wives are identified which leaves little doubt in my mind that Nathan Sweet and Samuel O. Sweet were living in close proximity to each other at the time. I also found some information (which, unfortunately, I did not document at the time) that stated that at the time of their parents death in 1844, Rensselaer Sweet, a minor, chose to live with his brother Ira A. Sweet and Thomas Andrew chose to live with his uncle, Job Sweet (or vice versa). I conjecture that Samuel O., who would have been 19 years old at the time also lived with his brother Ira as he (Samuel) later named one of his children Ira A. Sweet. One final item: In my initial message I cite a secondary source "History of Pike County, Illinois" as saying that Ira A. Sweet was the fifth of eight children of Ira Sweet and Sarah Hadsell. Although that information is correct as it appears in the source, I now believe the source is wrong and that the "fifth" was a typographical error for "first". I am convinced that Ira A. Sweet's (the son of Ira and Sarah Hadsell Sweet) correct birthdate was 1820 and not 1830.