Talk:Mary Gardiner Horsford

Birth (and death) dates
Hi User:HapHaxion -- I'm not so sure that she was born on the 27th vs the 26th -- her profile at RPI's catalog of manuscripts indicates that she was born on the 26th (a claim repeated on AllPoetry.com which copies the RPI info wholesale). Thing is, there aren't many reliable sources out there that specifically describe her birth date. RPI's page is the only thing I can find (and as a reputable university which maintains a collection of letters and whatnot from her family, I'd think they'd be in the best place to have read through the primary sources to discern her true birth date). All the other sources simply list the birth year. I'm not so sure Wikidata can be trusted on this one, either, the references listed for that one are CERL Thesaurus, Project Gutenberg, and the Online Books Page, but when I look up those respective sources I only see the year. And I don't think the gravestone is reliable, either! Her gravestone, and a number of sources, claim that she died in 1856 -- I'm pretty sure this is wrong, given that all the author profile stuff at CERL Thesaurus etc. list an 1855 death year, there are other reliable sources which give an 1855 death year, and a late 1855 article in The North American Review (cited in article) eulogizes her, which would make one think that she was dead at the time the article was written -- anyways, to make a long story short, I have no real objection to her birth date, but maybe we should note that her gravestone incorrectly lists her death date and let readers draw their own conclusions? RexSueciae (talk) 23:57, 13 January 2023 (UTC)