J D Collett says that David was the son of Samuel and father of Daniel. Robert Barnes says so too, but seems clearly to be relying on “the Collett genealogy.” And Barnes lists the same three children for David as listed by J D Collett with the same birth dates: Daniel 1701, Ruth 1703, Moses 1705.

But there is simply no evidence that I can find of those births or that those persons existed, other than Daniel. Our Daniel, who I think was born perhaps a few years earlier than 1701 married Ruth. She may have been born in 1703 or a few years earlier but I’m certain it was Daniel’s wife Ruth who J D Collett mistakenly made a child of the fictional David. And he also made Daniel’s son Moses appear to be his brother and made up a birth date for him to fit his mistaken notion of things. So the idea that there was anyone named Moses Collett born in the early 1700’s is also pure fiction.

This man is the pivot person in this family. It is right here in J D Collett’s version of things that real and obvious (sloppy in fact) errors begin to show up.

The only real piece of evidence that J D cites about David is a 1723 land lease. There were many land leases written back in those days and typically they would set a period of time for the lease to be in effect and it was the joint life spans of three people. One of the life spans was for the named assignee himself and often -- not always, but often -- the other two named people were the assignee’s wife and young child. J D Collett says that David’s lease was written for the joint lives of Daniel, Ruth and Moses who he says were David’s children.

Nonsense! I have a copy of that land-lease. Daniel was the assignee and it was written for the joint lives of Daniel, Ruth and Moses. There is no mention of David whatsoever. I believe J D mis-read or mis-transcribed the name Daniel and it came out David, erroneously.

Moreover, other similar land-leases I have seen were written for the life of the assignee and often his wife and a young child. J D seems to think this was assigned to David but written for the lives of three of his, by then, adult children. That would be strange indeed.

I do not think David existed. I have found no evidence that he did. He was mentioned in no official record that I know of. But a Samuel Colit did exist and baptized children at St. George’s Parish in 1704-1713 -- the very parish where our Daniel was first named in 1724. He is, so far as I can find, the only Collett alive in that time and place of the right age to be Daniel’s father.

There is a discordant note, though, that re quires me to hedge this theory just a little. The records of St. George’s Parish seem reasonably complete in the 1690’s when I think our Daniel was born and yet he was not listed. Yes, sometimes some birth/baptisms of people went unrecorded. But when Samuel and Catherine were first listed, all three of their children -- Samuel, Anne and John -- were listed together (Michael came later). If Daniel was also their son, why wasn’t he also named?

Nonetheless, until more information emerges, my best theory is that the fact that Samuel and Catherine, later Daniel and Ruth and still later Moses and Elizabeth were all associated with St. John’s and St. Georges Parish -- is evidence of a familial relationship supported by the fact that there was no other apparent candidate other than Samuel.