I have always thought the Ester Puffer/Captain Richard Bagley was about loyalists and patriots. My working hypothesis was someone wanted desperately to be a "good" american. They wanted to be part of the Daughters of the American Revolution. I saw a chart in Samuel Allin (1756-1841), Revolutionary War soldier of North Carolina and Kentucky : a record of his many descendants, 1756-19601 that illustrates another motive. The chart is interesting. It is not, like every other chart in the book a four generation chart; it shows two lines of couples going from child to parents to a common ancestral couple: Orlando Bagley and Sarah Colby. There are some birth and marriage dates, but most are missing. John Bagley and Margaret Mary Jane Allen are on the bottom on the right side. Joseph Smith Jr and Emma Hale are on the other. At least for the compilers of Samuel Allin there is second motive - to be "good" mormons. Being related to the Faith's founder would certainly do that.
1Maude Bliss Allen, Flora F. Iverson and Carma Iverson, Samuel Allin (1756-1841), Revolutionary War soldier of North Carolina and Kentucky : a record of his many descendants, 1756-1960, n.d. 277.
