Life History

Notes

• The full names and information for Benjamin Carpenter and his wife Sarah McFarland appears in several family genealogies.  But there is little if any documentation.  Most genealogies have the date of birth for Sarah as 1768, but this is impossible, since her first child was born in 1768 or 1769.  There may have been a first wife of Benjamin Carpenter.  Or the name Sarah Elizabeth McFarland may not even be correct for the wife of Benjamin Carpenter.
  
  The following genealogy provides some credible details, but notice that, like the others I have seen, he seems to have copied the same incorrect date, or got the wrong wife for this Benjamin Carpenter.  Sarah's birth date is only 2 years before her reported son Enoch!  The year 1768 is likely the marriage date, at any rate definitely not her birth date.
  
  Another problem is with the children.  If Benjamin was born in 1803, this Sarah Carpenter could not very likely have his mother, since she would have been 53 (if born about 1850).
  
  Sarah Elizabeth McFarland
  Birth 1768 in Shenandoah, Virginia
  Death 1815 in Anson, North Carolina
  Parents James McFarland 1732-1800, Margaret Downing 1738-1810
  Marriage to Benjamin Carpenter 1767 Amherst, Virginia
  Children:  Enoch Carpenter 1770-1824, Benjamin Carpenter 1803-1881
  --  Beck/Copeland, http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/42824/person/1059173496
  
  This one has a more reasonable birth date, but has not children except Enoch, the son through whom this present genealogy also connects to its main lines.
  
  Sarah Elizabeth McFarland
  Birth 1750 in Shenandoah, Virginia
  Death 1815 in Anson, North Carolina
  Spouse Benjamin Carpenter 1750-1832
  Son Enoch Carpenter 1770-1824
  --  Krise-Bennett, http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/9167840/person/189070690
  
  But this latter genealogy has the birthplace of Benjamin as Long Island, New York.  At least one other reports birth in New Jersey.  Other sources for the Carpenters indicate Ben and Sarah (if that was the correct name for his wife) were born in Virginia.  It appears that various genealogies have mixed two or more lines of Carpenters.
  

Sources

• 1. Ancestry Trees
• 2. Ancestry Trees
  • Krise-Bennett, http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/9167840/person/189070690
• 3. Ancestry Trees
  • Krise-Bennett, http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/9167840/person/189068360
• 4. Family Data Collection - Births