Where were Reuben and Polly Doud's children born?

Establishing a birth date and a birthplace for the children of Reuben Doud and Polly Griffin has proven to be a daunting task. It has been so for most of the researchers who have taken up the challenge. The Rev. W. W. Doud published the most widely quoted Doud History in 1885. You can access a copy on the Internet. It is titled “The Descendants of Henry Doude, who came from England in 1639”. In the forward the Rev. Doud acknowledges that most of the information for the first three generation that he uses was gathered from the collections of Alvan Talcott a source we have referenced many times on this Blog. Alvan Talcott’s work has been organized into a two-volume collection titled “Families of Early Guilford Connecticut”. Talcott’s work however contains no information on Reuben and Polly. Starting where Talcott left off the Rev. Doud amassed a wonderful collection covering a number of succeeding generations. Concerning Reuben and Polly’s family he writes, “The descendants of Reuben were widely scattered, and it has been with much difficulty that the line has been followed at all, to say nothing of the imperfect condition in which it still remains. His children were” he then lists Eber, Gaylord, Lois, Truman, Azubah, Polly, Vesta, Henry and Reuben G. He also includes their spouses. For dates he has years only with no locations. From a review of subsequent material it would seem that most individual family histories written subsequent to his history have relied heavily on his material in particular the dates. Recent research efforts have provided a specific date for the death of almost all of his children and in a few instances we have also discovered a date of birth. But what we have not been able to find up until now is a definitive connection to a place of birth. Henry Doude was a founding father for the town of Guilford. His generations are connected to that place. As the original Guilford grew it was subdivided. The primary motivation was the establishment of new Congregational Societies. North Guilford became Bristol and East Guilford became Madison. In a recent detailed review of the early church records for Madison we found a baptismal record for two of Reuben and Polly’s children. On May 29, 1796 Vesta and Zuba, children of Reuben Doud, were baptized. Reuben purchased his first piece of property in Cortland, New York in late 1795. It is my assumption that he moved to Cortland at about that time and began to organize a farm and homestead so that he could bring his family to New York at a later date. This pattern of colonization that was very common. In the meantime Polly had the two youngest girls baptized. I remain puzzled as to why there is no records for the other children in Madison.