Edward Clark Archer

 I was over on Family Search this week putting out brush fires. Always. I'm not sure what is confusing about sourcing one's material, but I spend a lot of time deleting things people link to my tree. (my main complaint with the group-think approach at Family Search)

Here's an example: My 4x great grandfather Aaron Rogers was born in Harwich, Massachusetts. He came from a very large family. And his ancestors all had very large families. So, if you are a Rogers from anywhere on Cape Cod, chances are we are cousins. He served in a militia during the Revolutionary War. After the war, in recognition of his service, he was given a land grant in Holden, Massachusetts. Now you would think that this alone would be enough to show proof of service. Apparently not. At some point his misplaced his paperwork. When it came time to apply for his pension, he was denied. So,  he got his brother-in-law Jonathan to write a letter for him and he did the same. I found these on Fold 3. Both men refer to each other as brother-in-law. So I looked all through his sibs to find a sister who married a Jonathan. None existed. Here's where it gets interesting.

Aaron married a young woman named Hannah Rogers of Harwich. I checked the marriage and the marriage intentions assuming they had just put her married name. In both cases she's Hannah Rogers. Using that, and the declaration letter from Jonathan, I decided that her maiden name really WAS Rogers and that Jonathan was her brother. I have NEVER found any information on their parents. Believe me I've looked. There are so many branches to that Rogers line that it is a real rabbit hole.  But I am constantly deleting things from Family Search which assign her to various other families. Sigh...

Today I was noodling around there and found parents assigned to my ancestor Edward Clark Archer. John came from Anne Arundel, Maryland where he was born in 1772. He supposedly came from "an old Maryland family". But he is a notorious brick wall if you are an Archer descendant. (And there are a boatload) So of course I wondered how someone had found parents for Edward. And here's what I found,

So of course this is supposedly from a family Bible. It would be nice to have something more, but at this point that may be nonexistent. However, it may be worth contacting one of these people to see if they would kindly take a photo.  Daniel and Ann Archer moved to Virginia and there is apparently more family. It would be nice to at least take down this brick wall.