Nancy Burner/Jason Duncan/Illegitimate child? ILLINOIS
My GGGgrandfather was Jason Duncan (b. 1799 VT); he practiced medicine in New Salem, IL and around 1833 relocated to Knoxville, Knox County, IL for the remainder of his life. My question is this: according to Lincoln lore (apparently he was well acquainted with A. Lincoln)Jason married Nancy Burner (daughter of Isaac); she either had an illegitimate child or was pregnant ( I couldn't tell which), possibly by another man, when he married her. I just discovered this info recently, having never looked into this line at all. Problem is that the Illinois Archives list Jason as having married Nancy BENNER (not Burner) in December, 1833.
Census records indicate that "their" oldest child, Clarissa (named after Jason's mother) was born December, 1834. Their second child was Jason Jr. (my ancestor) -- census records fairly consistently suggest he was a year younger than Clarissa (born 1835/6). However Jason's tombstone states he was born in 1834.... how could he have been if Clarissa was born in December, 1834...? I mean I can do the math, it would be possible but then HE would have to have been illegitimate: if Clarissa was really born in December, 1834, she couldn't have been since Jason and Nancy had been married a full year by then...yet this whole story of Jason marrying a pregnant girl is recalled by several different sources in Herndon's Informants. Is it possible she had a child and gave it up after marrying Jason?
Was Nancy Benner really Nancy Burner? Were there surname mistakes like this on state records?
Any thoughts greatly appreciated!