I have been researching my paternal line and have come across a stumbling block. My line can be traced pretty easily back to the beginning of the 19th century in Ohio, where we come across one Ebenezer Blackstone (1776?-1824). Try as I might, I cannot go back any further, but my searches have come across the following passage which may or may not prove fruitful. At
http://genealogytrails.com/kan/leavenworth/bios5.html
we have the following passage of interest.
September 25, 1859, he married Miss Ionia Blackstone, great-great-great-granddaughter of William Blackstone, the famous author of Blackstone's commentary on law; also of George Fox, the famous leader of the Quakers; and a third cousin of ex-President Rutnerford B. Hayes. Her father, Ebenezer Blackstone, was born in Smithfield, Ohio, and was a son of William Blackstone, a dry-goods merchant of Philadelphia, and later a resident of Smithfield; he married Miss Ann Price, whose mother was a daughter of George Fox. William's father, Ebenezer, was born in England, where his father, William Blackstone, was a leading attorney and writer upon law. The various branches of the family were allied with the Society of Friends. Ebenezer Blackstone, Jr., engaged in the dry-goods business in Middletown, Guernsey County, Ohio, where his daughter, Ionia, was born.
I would like some help interpreting that passage, in light of the following facts.
As far as I can tell, the lineage here is Sir William, William, Ebenezer, William, Ebenezer, Ionia. It is my hypothesis that the first Ebenezer listed here is my Ebenezer, but that is not really relevant for the rest of the question.
It is a fact (as much as is possible) that Ann Price and William Blackstone married in 1808. (from ancestry.com) Public trees there have William being born in 1787.
It is also a fact that Sir William married Sarah Clitherow about 1760 and had a number of children including two named William. The first, born in 1762, died as a child, and the second, born in 1769, survived until adulthood. There are also public trees on ancestry.com that indicate a son William by a previous marriage (to Margaret Smith) born in 1756. It seems unlikely that any of these children could have had a grandchild born in 1787, as the passage implies.
I have not been able to locate any additional biographical information that would indicate that Sir William had any sons before 1756. Since he is a relatively famous personage, I would assume that his children would be well documented.
So what is the best way to reconcile/verify the claims made in this passage? I have not been able to track anything else down on ancestry.com. The public trees there are fairly prone to error in any case. The SAR/DAR websites are not helpful here as the immigration occurred after the Revolutionary War. I have other evidence that indicates that the immigration probably occurred in 1799, but nothing shows up on ancestry.com -- are there other, better, sources of immigration information? Basically, I have hit a brick wall and would like some additional resources to check.
So after this preamble, I guess my question is the following. If we assume the lineage Sir William, William, Ebenezer, William, Ebenezer, Ionia is correct, what can we say about the birthdates of these people given that Sir William is well documented as having lived from 1723-1780 and the last William married in 1808? I am interested both in determining the birthdates of the people listed here and in learning about the resources available for answering such questions. I will add a separate question for the immigration issue, as it is not the focus of this question.