Puffer adventures

So there is this vicious, oft repeated rumor that Edward Cyrenus Bagley is the son of Esther Puffer, in spite of all evidence to the contrary. About six months ago, I had deleted the connection in Family Tree and about three weeks later one of my well meaning cousins ignored all the notes and discussions and conscientiously restored the link. OK, they are working with the best information they have and they've been told their entire lives this is the TRUTH. I threw up my hands and went on to work on other challenges.

So, I recently was lured back to the Edward Bagley parentage conundrum. I had this thought - what if I carefully documented Esther Puffer to show she never married, never had any children, in fact never left Vermont? Would that be good enough? I dug up the Puffer family history, linked her family to their page, looked up the family in various census records and found some very interesting things:

1. Esther lived in Grafton, Vermont in 1850 with an Ann Puffer - most assuredly her older sister, Anna.
2. She was still living with Ann in Grafton in 1860, and a Sally Darling had moved in - most likely younger sister, Sally Puffer who had married Roswell Darling. 
3. Esther died in 1863. 
4. Sally died in 1861. 
5. Ann continued to live in Grafton, and we find her in 1870 with Amos Puffer - her widower brother and his son Winchester Sydney.
6. Ann and Amos are again together in 1880 in Grafton and Amos is feeling the effects of old age.
7. Ann dies in 1881.
8. Amos dies in 1889.

Very nice story - siblings pull together and care for each other through old age - probably signifying they were close. It would be nice if we could be on good enough terms with our siblings that we could take care of each other after our spouses died. 

I found something interesting with Amos record. Someone had carefully married him to Ann (no known last name). Apparently, they saw the census records from 1870 and 1880 and assumed two people with the same name and different genders must be married. They must not have had the complete death records for Amos and Ann, which listed the same set of parents, nor did they notice the widowed marriage status for Amos and the single marriage status for Ann in 1880. I guess the moral of the story is be careful and be ready to change something if further evidence shows your assumption is wrong.

Correct 18 May 2015, original stated Esther's sister was Ann Bagley, not Ann Puffer.