Talk:John Dixwell

Source of Birth Year for John Dixwell?
What is the source of the birth year 1607? Is there a baptismal record?

I note that England's Dictionary of National Biography lists only his date of death, omitting the year of birth entirely, while the "Peacey, J.T." reference uses "c.1607." Yet, many American websites seem to have the year fixed as 1607. Thus, my question about the source.

I'm hoping that the year 1607 as a year of birth was not (incorrectly) derived from the words "82d year" on the epitaph of his original stone, which reads:

J.D., Esqr. Deceased March ye 18th in ye 82d Year of his Age 1688/9

There are two important things to note here in determining his age at time of death---the Julian Calendar and the meaning of the phrase "in the 82nd year of his age."

On the old Julian Calendar, in use until 1752, the new year fell on March 25th, rather than January 1st. Dates that fell between Jan 1st and March 24th would have been reported as being in the year 1688, whereas the same dates on the modern Gregorian calendar would have been reported as being in 1689. Therefore, John Dixwell's date of death, by the Gregorian calendar in use today, should be 18 Mar 1689. (The epitaph used the "dual dating system", where both Julian/Gregorian calendar years were recorded.)

As regards the phrase "in the 82nd year of his age," this meant that he was between his 81st and 82nd birthdays, because birth to age one was the first year, followed by first birthday, etc. He was 81 years old, going on 82---thus, "in" the 82nd year. (I have studied a large number of headstones from the 17th and early 18th centuries where the date of birth is accurately sourced, and know this to be true.) The phrase is, therefore, not equivalent to "age(d) 82." Modern-day genealogists often err in making this assumption.

Unfortunately, we have only one date of reference for calculating his age: his date of death. If we had his age at one or more additional dates during the year, such as at will-signing, we might be able to narrow it down further, but I'm not aware of his age on any other dates. So, the year of his birth would depend on when his birthday fell with respect to the 18th of March. If he had not yet had a birthday in 1689, then he would have turned 82 later in the year, and would have been born in 1607 (1689 - 82 = 1607). On the other hand, if his birthday fell between January 1st and March 18th, he would already have had a birthday in 1689, and thus would have been born in 1608 (1689 - 81 = 1608). Mathematically speaking, the probability is greater that he would have turned 82 later in the year (288 days / 365 days = 78.9 percent), as opposed to on or before March 18th (77 days / 365 days = 21.1 percent).

In summary: If there is no source for his birth date, then the best guesstimate would be 1607-8. If I were going to use "circa," I'd probably lean toward "c.1608" due to the higher probability. Mrs rockefeller (talk) 02:53, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

B class review
B class. Nice work. Three minor edits were made for clarification. Please clarify the two issues listed below.
 * Note b. "This proved successful." What was successful, the marriage, or keeping the property in the family? Retaining the property but I've removed the FN as its probably not needed
 * Photo caption. "Rebuilt at great expense". This information was not in the article, so this caption should have a citation. Added TX Robinvp11 (talk) 12:59, 18 February 2023 (UTC)