I am rather concerned about information contained in the section titled "Religious dissent and nonconformity" in this article. Some I consider to be spurious. I am a descendant of a man named in this article, Aquila Chase, and the very best scholarly research I've seen does not make a positive and certain connection to anyone as his father. In the Chesham article, it notes Aquila Chase as having arrived in North America with his father, William Chase, on a ship that came in 1643, but Aquila Chase was already in New Hampshire in 1640. I also call into question the logic of selecting Salmon Portland Chase as one scion of Aquila's family, and then connecting him to a bank which merely used his name. Salmon P. Chase never had anything to do with this bank. This opens the article to being on shakier ground. Further, Salmon P. Chase is by no means the only famous member of the family in America; which included bishops, generals, colonels, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, judges, and other notables I don't know in my own head.
I am uncomfortable editing an article in which I have a personal connection, but would be grateful for an opportunity to provide documentation and argument to some qualified editor who would care to edit this section with a little input from me. Allow me to be clear, I make no reproach to anyone's work thus far. Anecdotal information has been weaving its way into factual history since language evolved; it is an important part of the work of a scholar to note and discriminate between mere stories and real facts. Wisconsinator (talk) 04:14, 1 December 2009 (UTC)