Hundreds of online family trees, and a book or two, have presumed that Edward Morgan married a daughter of John and Margaret Jarman, named either Elizabeth, Margaret, or Margaret Elizabeth (merging two sisters into one person).
However, a search through Quaker records and a study of the timelines of these two families, clearly show that this is an impossibility.
Edward and Elizabeth had 12 documented children, and the earliest documented marriage of their children, that of Elizabeth Morgan to Cadwallader Morris, occurred 24 May 1710, as recorded in the Radnor Monthly Meeting Minutes (1). If she married at age 18, she would have been born about 1692. It appears she was the eldest daughter.
The birth order of the Morgan children is hard to pinpoint, but Stewart Baldwin, in his series of articles in The Genealogist, noted that they always signed their names on marriage certificates in the same order, which implies birth order (the men signed in separate columns than the women): William, Edward, John, Daniel, Morgan, Joseph, and Elizabeth, Margaret, Alice, Deborah, Sarah, Mary (2).
Since daughter Elizabeth was born at least by 1692, mother Elizabeth would have been born no later than 1674 (aged 18 in 1692).
Priscilla Walker Streets, in her apparently well researched book (though sadly without source citations), states that John and Margaret Jarman came from Wales with their two eldest children, Elizabeth and Sarah, who died young (3). They had five children born in Pennsylvania: John, born 12 Nov 1684, Margaret, born 9 Sep 1687, Priscilla (4), Elizabeth, born 16 Nov 1690, and Sarah, born 14 Feb 1695 (5). As it was extremely rare to have two daughters with the same name living at the same time (let alone 2 sets), the birth records of the daughters Elizabeth (1690) and Sarah (1695) lend credence to Streets' statement that if there were two daughters named Elizabeth and Sarah born before their immigration to Pennsylvania, they died before the second set of daughters were born.
Since the earliest recorded birth of a child of John and Margaret Jarman is 1684, and presuming eldest daughters Elizabeth and Sarah, they would have been born about 1680 and 1682, making John born about 1654 and Margaret his wife born about 1661 (aged about 25 and 18 at presumed marriage of 1679).
Morgan Timeline Jarman Timeline
c. 1660 - Edward Morgan born c. 1654 - John Jarman born
by 1674 - Elizabeth, wife of Edward, born c. 1661, Margaret, wife of John Jarman born
c. 1683 - son William born 1687 - daughter Margaret born
c. 1687 - daughter Elizabeth born 1690 - daughter Elizabeth born
1710 - daughter Elizabeth married
As you can see from this timeline, Edward Morgan and Elizabeth his wife were of the same generation as John Jarman and his wife Margaret. Their purported first daughter Elizabeth died before 1690, when their second daughter Elizabeth was born, and their daughter Margaret was born in 1687.
Both of these daughters are far too young to have married Edward Morgan and had a son William born circa 1683. In fact, neither daughter had even been born when Willliam Morgan was born. And as for Elizabeth Morgan, who married in 1710, she was born about the same time that Margaret Jarman was born.
As you can see from this timeline, the Morgan children were of the same generation as the Jarman children.
Sources:
(1) Society of Friends (Radnor, Delaware, Philadelphia), Marriages, Births, and Burial Certificates, 1684-1729, page 479, Image 470 of 500, U.S., Quaker Meeting Records, 1681-1935, ancestry.com
(2) Stewart Baldwin, "The Family of Edward1 Morgan of Pennsylvania: Daniel Boone's Maternal Kin, The Genealogist, Volume 15 Number 1, Spring 2001, pages 104-127; Volume 15 Number 2, Fall 2001, pages 172-195; Volume 16 Number 1, Spring 2002, pages 71-92
(3) Priscilla Walker Streets, "Lewis Walker of Chester Valley and his descendants, Alfred J. Ferris, Printer, Philadelphia, PA, 1896, pages 72-73, ancestry.com
(4) Will of Margaret Jerman, dated 23 Dec 1731, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Will Book F, pages 218-219, FHL #007726373, familysearch.org
(5) Society of Friends (Radnor, Delaware, Philadelphia), Marriages, Births, and Burial Certificates, 1684-1729, pages 123-125, Images 124-126 of 500, U.S., Quaker Meeting Records, 1681-1935, ancestry.com
