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❧ How We Got Here The Paulson Family

Referenced in the family

Sarah D. Bills

b. 1827

Life

2 Nov 1827Born

Records & Research

Sarah D. Bills was born 2 November 1827, the sixth of nine children of Chester Bills (1791-1845) and Mary Day (1790-1852), per the 2006 family report ("How we got here"). The report records her only as a child entry with a birth date and gives no death, marriage, burial, or descendants for her (the documented line runs through her brother Dan Buell Bills, b. 1830). Despite searching multiple public genealogy sources (FindAGrave, FamilySearch, WikiTree, and several rootsweb family-tree compilations) under the surname variants Bills, Bill, and Bilton, no public record was found that matches this individual on two or more independent anchors. No death, burial, marriage, or census record could be confirmed for Sarah herself. NOTE: the family is firmly placed in Chautauqua County, New York (Versailles, Hanover, Smith Mills; Mary Day buried Balltown Cemetery, Smith Mills) per the family report, so the statement that the parental family "did not surface in any indexed public tree" should be read narrowly as "not found in the public online trees searched," not as evidence the family is undocumented.

No additional public records have been confirmed yet — only what the family report records.

Open questions (8)
  • No public record (FindAGrave, FamilySearch, WikiTree, or rootsweb genealogy trees) was located for Sarah D. Bills b. 2 Nov 1827, nor independently for her stated parents Chester Bills (1791-1845) and Mary Day (1790-1852), beyond the 2006 family report itself.
  • DISAMBIGUATION KEY recovered from the family report (and missed in the original search): the Bills/Day family is from Chautauqua County, New York (places named: Versailles, Hanover, Smith Mills / Smiths Mills), and Mary Day is recorded as buried at Balltown Cemetery, Smith Mills. Future searches for Sarah should use New York / Chautauqua County plus sibling names (Samuel E., Abigail E., Ely S., Daniel B., Sidney E., Dan Buell, Phoeba M. Bills) as anchors rather than birth year alone.
  • Candidates with matching birth years were all different people and are correctly rejected: Sarah Diantha Dakens Ellis (1827-1909, PA) and Sarah Elizabeth Stout Gaylord (1827-1903) on FindAGrave, and Sarah Bilton (b. Dec 1827, Hampshire, England) on Ancestry. The Chautauqua Co., NY placement of the true family makes the PA and England rejections especially clear; none connect to Chester Bills / Mary Day.
  • The surname may be a variant of 'Bill' (without s). A dav4is rootsweb 'Bill Families' compilation and a billdeverell 'Tree of Bill' index were checked; neither contained a Chester Bill (1791-1845) married to Mary Day. A deeper manual check on Ancestry behind login, scoped to NY/Chautauqua, is worth doing.
  • The FamilySearch 'Betsey Bill (1791-1845)' entry shares Chester's exact birth and death years (1791-1845) but is a different given name and was not tied to Mary Day or to the Smith Mills, NY family; flagged as a possible coincidence/name-collision, not a match.
  • A 'Perley Chester Bills (1856-1899)' FindAGrave memorial reuses 'Chester' as a Bills middle name, hinting at a real Bills family using 'Chester'; ancestry not run down and not confirmed to connect to this family.
  • The English 'Billing' family (Janet and Robert Wolfe Genealogy) surfaced for 'Bills' searches but is unrelated (different surname, England, no Chester/Mary Day).
  • No marriage or married surname is known for Sarah, which severely limits findability of any adult death/burial record; a spouse name (or confirmation she died young/unmarried) would be the single most useful next anchor.
Sources consulted (10)

Ancestry

Four generations back. Tap any name to recenter the chart, or open the full family tree.

Sarah D. Bills b. 1827
father Chester Bills 1791–1845
father Daniel Bills
mother Abigail
mother Mary Day 1790–1852