Joshua Whitney and his three wives require further study; here I follow Smith507 with some additions from other sources. Against, Smith, Skeate508 gives Joshua’s birth date as 5 Jul 1635, and his death date as 7 Aug 1717; these are the dates given by Green42 also (see below). There is much confusion with respect to Joshua’s children. The children listed here are those documented by Smith507, with the addition of Alice, who is listed by Skeate. (Alice is the one through whom I descend, so the confusion is significant.) Smith is not certain which of the first three children, Joshua, Sarah, and Hannah, were born to Joshua Tarbell’s first wife and which to the second, because the marriage date of Joshua to his second wife Lydia has not been established. Skeate assigns Hannah to Joshua’s third wife, Abigail Tarbell. To complicate the matter further, Butler509 lists three children for “Joshua Whitney and Lydia”: Joshua, b. 14 Jun 1666 (not 1665 as given by Smith), Sarah, b. 10 Oct 1668, and Mary, b. “1d. 5m. 1675.” The assignment of Mary to Lydia seems unlikely if indeed the marriage date of Joshua Tarbell and Abigail Tarbell is firmly established, as it appears to be.

Green42 reproduces Joshua Whitney’s gravestone (the seventh-oldest in Groton’s old cemetery) as follows: “[Death’s Head.]/Here Lyes the/Body of Mr/JOSHUA WHITNEY,/Aged 83 Years,/Decd August 7th 1719.” Green identifies him as the “son of JOHN and ELINOR WHITNEY, born July 15, 1635, at Watertown.”