Midwestern genealogy in New England Ancestors

New England Ancestors is to the New England Historic and Genealogical Register as the NGS Magazine is to the National Genealogical Society Quarterly -- more popular, less formal and scholarly. NEA and NGSM have less prestige but wider appeal and more flexibility. This quarter NEA is featuring western New York (an important and complicated feeder to the Midwest among other things), but two articles touch immediately on our area of focus:

The regular feature "Diaries at NEHGS," by archivist/editor Robert Shaw, excerpts and puts in contxt the diaries of Diadema (Bourn) Swift (1812-1888), who after enduring her husband's long absences on whaling voyages, after his death emigrated to Benton County, Indiana, and then to Des Moines, Iowa, in hopes that her sons would not follow the sea.

Jim Boulden takes on a difficult task in "Betting on Land in Missouri: A Family Story" -- chronicling his Ely and Hyde ancestors' rarely investigated pioneering of Marion, Alexandria, and St. Francisville in northeastern Missouri (just across the Mississippi River from Illinois). Previous family genealogists ignored failure and defeat, and it can be difficult to research when the records were lost with the enterprise. But a family history that is all good news is unfaithful to the reality of our ancestors' lives.

Methodology Monday in Maine and Illinois

The spring issue of New England Ancestors brings us Eben W. Graves, author of The Descendants of Henry Sewall, 1576-1656, writing about how researchers on two coasts and two continents put together John J. Sewall of Barry, Pike County, Illinois, and John Jenks Sewall of Bath, Sagadahoc County, Maine.

I think it's fair to say that while the internet made the process of assembling evidence much faster, it didn't change the logic of the conclusion that they were the same person. The names being the same was only the beginning. Several different records showed convergences, including a long-lost letter from 1896 -- but records being what they are, the resemblances between the two men were not perfect.

I think the conclusion is valid, but the evidence mentioned is all positive -- did anyone in the crew try to disprove the hypothesis by looking for John Jenks Sewall dying young, or living in Maine at the same time John J. Sewall was in Illinois?