Simple Statements of Fact
They can be tricky - leading to a really long post today
Alice Matteson married Thomas Whitford on 9 Jan 1752 in West Greenwich, Kent County, Rhode Island. We know this from the marriage record which was documented in the 21-volume Rhode Island, U.S., Vital Extracts, 1636-1899, compiled by James Newell Arnold and published from 1891–1912.1
Arnold organized the original vital records for Rhode Island by town and condensed each record into one or two lines, depending on how much information was recorded on the original record. He sorted the marriage records within each town by the bride’s surname and the groom’s, so those appear twice. In the West Greenwich section, in the W’s, among the other Whitfords, you find:
1-83 [Whitford] Thomas, of Pasco, and Alice Matteson, of Joseph; m. by Jeremiah Ellis, Justice, Jan. 9, 1752.
And in the M’s, with the Mattesons, you find:
1-83 [Matteson] Alice, and Thomas Whitford, Jan. 9, 1752.
Arnold does warn in his introduction that “nothing beyond the book and page of the original Town Record, the names and the date are given when the bride is placed first. That under the groom the notes are so extended as to include all the items of the record from whence it is taken. The reader will therefore consider the bride being placed first as merely an index for him to consult the other entry.”
Arnold’s work is a good example of a reliable secondary source - these aren’t the original records. Still, if you don’t have access to them (and if you pay attention to Arnold’s introduction) this should be a useful tool for documenting these family connections.
Now what?
Finding Joseph Matteson
Considering how many Whitford and Matteson families are in West Greenwich, it stands to reason that we should look for Alice’s parents in nearby Rhode Island locations. A search did turn up another secondary source: The Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island compiled by John Osborne Austin in 1887. Page 132 gives us a picture of three generations of Mattesons.2
Henry Matteson (1646-~1690) and Hannah Parsons appear in a column on the left, their children are listed in a large central section, and their grandchildren (where known) are in a column to the right, lined up with their parents’ entries. I’ve pulled out the information you need in this outline:
I. Henry Matteson (d. 13 Apr 1752) and Judith Weaver (d. 1751) - dau. of Clement Weaver
10 named children
II. Thomas Matteson (d. 19 Jan 1740) and Martha Shippee - dau. of David and Margaret (Scranton) Shippee
6 named children, including:
4. Joseph Matteson (b. 1 Jul 1705)
III. Joseph Matteson (d. 1758) and Rachel (no further info)
1. Joseph Matteson (b. 22 Mar 1707)
(III.) Joseph and 2nd wife, Martha (died after 1757; no further info)
5. Alice
Take note: there are three men named Joseph Matteson in this chart:
Jospeph “III.” - son of Henry (no birthdate reported).
Joseph “1.” - son of Joseph, born on 22 Mar 1707.
Joseph “4.” - son of Thomas, born on 1 Jul 1705.
Austin’s 1887 “Genealogical Dictionary” predates Arnold’s register of vital records by at least four years, so Austin’s information probably comes from the primary sources. We see Alice Matteson listed, and now we have the names of her father and mother - Joseph “son of Henry” Matteson and Martha.
Looking for more information, I came across two more interesting sources that add to what we know about Joseph “son of Henry”:
History and genealogy of a branch of the Weaver family3 tentatively claims that Judith Weaver is the daughter of Clement Weaver (1647-1691) and wife of Henry Matteson, above ("I. Henry Matteson (1646-~1690)"). It then includes this brief mention:
"VII. Rachel, b. Dec. 24, 1684; m. Joseph Matteson (Henry). He was a brother of her sister Judith's husband.
CHILD (Matteson):
I. Joseph, b. March 22, 1707.
Rachel’s birth in 1684 suggests that her husband and his brother were probably born close to that same year (within reason). Then, more helpfully, Ancestry and descendants of William Curtis of Marcellus, N.Y.4 named Joseph as the third child of Henry and Hannah Matteson:
"iii. JOSEPH, d. 1758, m. Ist, Rachel --, 2nd., Martha Greene.
Now that we have Martha’s surname, we can look for sources that mention her, and what a find that uncovers! According to The Greene family and its branches from 861 to 1904 by Lora La Mance (emphasis mine):5
"MARTHA GREENE-MATTESON. She was married 10 days before her brother, James Greene, being married to Joseph Matteson May 8, 1727. He was her mother's first cousin, and had at that time a grown son by his first marriage. Had nine children. Of Obediah, Elizabeth, Thomas and Eunice I have no records. Martha's line is a most extensive one, and cannot be given as fully as I would wish, from lack of space."
(excertped from the biographies of Martha’s children:)
--ALICE MATTESON-WHITFORD, wife of Thomas Whitford, her cousin. Line inter-married with the Tarbox branch later.
Based on this book, the work to connect Alice (Matteson) Whitford to the surgeon John Greene is already done. All we need to do is look for primary source records to confirm that. Except…
Not So Fast, Cousin
“Wait a second, Tad,” you might be saying. “Some of this information doesn’t add up. If Joseph’s first wife was born in 1684, and her sister married his older brother, wouldn’t he be too old to marry Martha and father eleven children…?” Probably. It’s good that you’re being skeptical. Let’s take a look at that 1727 marriage record.
Back in Arnold’s “Vital record…” this time in East Greenwich, we find bride and groom records for:
1-8 [Matteson] Joseph, of Thomas, and Martha Greene, of John; m. by Thomas Spencer, Justice, May 8, 1727.
That simple statement of fact contradicts those earlier secondary sources and calls their other facts into question. Further digging reveals that genealogist H. Porter Matteson addressed the discrepancy between the Rhode Island vital record identifying Joseph's father as "Thomas" and these other family histories confusing him with his uncle, as shown above, in his 1938 manuscript, Mattesons in America.6
Simply Stated
Matteson’s work in 1938 points out many flaws in earlier works that focus on the Greene and Matteson families in Rhode Island. My own research seems to suggest that several of these family histories referred to the Austin Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island (some cite him specifically) and either did not refer to Arnold’s later, more authoritative Vital Record or simply did not notice the “of Thomas” in Joseph Matteson’s marriage record.
But take some notice of the fact that I wouldn’t have found my way to the 1938 Matteson book without those flawed sources to follow. It would be irresponsible and unhelpful to throw out works that have these kinds of errors and hide them from view. But now our job as researchers is to document what the errors are, and leave our work correcting them for others - the way Matteson did.
Unfortunately, The Greene family and its branches from 861 to 1904 is a widely available, frequently re-published work. It is engagingly written, includes a lot of colorful commentary about the relationships between the families, and some poetry from the author. Matteson’s work is a typewritten manuscript, hard to read, written with cryptic abbreviations, and not available in any kind of attractive hard copy options.
You can see how I addressed this problem if you look through the Research Notes section of Alice (Matteson) Whitford’s WikiTree profile. I also linked the WikiTree source page for The Greene family… back to the Matteson work and updated the Errata section.
To Sum Up:
We only have one solid primary source that connects Alice to her mother, Martha Greene - but we have a lot of context from secondary sources, including her father’s will (which was misattributed to an uncle of the same name).
And we have a clue connecting Martha Greene to her father, who bore the incredibly unique name, “John.”
Sigh.
Arnold, James Newell, Vital record of Rhode Island, 1636-1850: a family register for the people, Vol. 1, page 57 (462 of 637).
Austin, John Osborne, 1849-1918, The genealogical dictionary of Rhode Island: comprising three generations of settlers who came before 1690: with many families carried to the fourth generation, J. Munsell's sons, Albany, 1887, page 132.
Weaver, Lucius E.; History and genealogy of a branch of the Weaver family, Rochester, N.Y.: DuBois Press, 1928; Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2005; page 69 - accessed 12/31/2023.
Steele, Lorissa E., Ancestry and descendants of William Curtis of Marcellus, N.Y., Pasadena, Calif.: L.E. Steele, 1912; Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2005; page 74 - accessed 12/31/2023.
La Mance, Lora Sarah Nichols (1857-), Stowe, Attie A. Nichols (1843-); The Greene family and its branches from 861 to 1904; Mayflower publishing company, Floral Park, N.Y., 1904; Collection: The Library of Congress, pp. 120-121.
Matteson, H. Porter, "Mattesons in America", Columbus, Ohio, 1938; pages 10 and 11 - accessed 12/31/2023; Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2004.
Wow, Tad, a masterclass in family history research.