Truly Proven

In 1993 I wrote my first genealogical article correcting mistakes in the three-volume Cleveland Genealogy.  In that article I wrote:

The Rev. Nathan⁵ (Benjamin^4-3, Aaron²) Cleveland married Diademia Dextor (sic) of Liverpool, Nova Scotia on 10 November 1799 according to CG no. 410, pp. 252-3. Her birth date is given as 10 October 1777, but no parentage for her is given in the CG.  However, in The Genealogy of the Dexter Family in America; Descendants of Thomas Dexter (William A. Worden & Robert L. Dexter, Worcester, 1905), pp. 44-5, an entry was made for Ariedana Dexter, daughter of Ebenezer and Lydia (Rider) Dexter. Ariedana appears as the eleventh of fourteen children born sometime after 1773 when child no. nine, Samuel Dexter, was born. The first three children's births are given as Rochester, MA, the remaining children in Liverpool, N.S. She is shown as having married Nathaniel Cleveland. At the Provincial Archives of Nova Scotia (PANS), there is a manuscript outlining Queens County families, which shows that Diademe (sic) Dexter who married Nathan Cleveland was the daughter of Ebenezer and Lydia Dexter. Ebenezer and family emigrated from Rochester, MA per a land grant dated 20 November 1764. Ebenezer died 10 August 1781 (Perkins Diary, PANS), while his widow was still alive until 1811 (she was baptized on 4 August 1811 at age "upwards of 70", Perkins Diary). In John Payzant's Marriages (PANS collection), Nathan Cleveland married Diademe Dexter on 10 November 1799.

The NEHGS library in Boston now owns all the Nova Scotian counties land and probate records on microfilm. I found the following deed in Queens County (NS) Deeds 6:159 where Nathan Cleveland quitclaims to Jesse Nickerson on 20 May 1801 (rec. 12 January 1813), “all my right and title in and to a certain tract or share of lands being the part assignment to Didamia my wife, the daughter of Ebenezer Dexter late of said Liverpool, deceased." Diademia herself confirms the deed.  Although the uniqueness of her name was enough, in my eyes, this deed truly proves it.