Talk:Sylvester Smith (Latter Day Saints)

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Birth details disputed[edit]

The article says he was born March 25, 1806 in Becket, Massachusetts. This doesn't agree with the BYU Studies Biographical Registers site, which states he was born in Connecticut in 1805.

In the article, in the sentence following the Mass. birthplace, Michael Quinn's Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power is cited, possibly indicating where this birth detail comes from. Although Quinn is credible, so are Dean C. Jessee and Lyndon Cook from the BYU Studies Biographical Registers. For the most current scholarly findings, does anybody know what the biographical register says in the Joseph Smith Papers? ——Rich jj (talk) 20:10, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

After some research, I found that various credible sources disagreed with each other about Sylvester Smith's birth details. I favored and used the details from the Biographical Directory of the Joseph Smith Papers, since that project is notable for careful research and verification by a large staff of qualified historians. That entry also introduces a birth date and death details that aren't in any prior work that I could find, which suggests they're using new research unavailable to prior publications. I changed these details and contrasted them against other conflicting reports in this edit: [1] (especially see the footnote). ——Rich jj (talk) 21:50, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]