Genealogy of the Wheatley Family 1902 - Disproven Existence source

Question

The beginning section of Genealogy of the Wheatley Family 1902 seems like a fabrication & the affected profiles I think meet the criteria to be managed by the Disproven Existence project.

If you look at these G2Gs:

• Edward III Project: Gateway Ancestors - do you have one?
• Was Dorothy Wheatley Bliss really dau of Frank of Maiden Newton? Or John of Daventry?

The basic work is there finding various errors and fabrications:

• A manor at Tingsboro, which Helen tried to find and I also couldn't. I think this was an attempt to reverse engineer Tyngsborogh, Massachussets as a place in Somserset.
• A Nathaniel Wheatleigh who was Sheriff in 1616, who I cannot find. The Sheriff of Somerset in 1616 was John Poulett of Hinton St George, later 1st Baron Poulett
• A couple of sons attending Oxford who don't appear in the Alumni records
• A couple of priests whose parishes don't seem to exist.
• References to the Somerset visitation and this family doesn't have a entry the 16th and 17th century visitations.

I'm going to tag the first few generations with the Category:Uncertain Existence but this is a big tree. Thanks!

Comments

Also the thing that kept bothering me was multiple wills note the men as having the honorific "Esq." but their wealth was primarily in cows. Is that actually common in gentry wills?

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The John you link to is supposedly named "John Frank Wheatley" which is an instant clue to fakery, as middle names were very unusual in this time period.

I put a "pipe" making the template {{Uncertain Existence|England}} in the hopes this might attract someone in the England Project to help with the research on this!  The result of the pipe is it marks the profile with an "England Uncertain Existence" category.

Answer 1

One problem with fabricated genealogies is that they often combine true facts about true people with false facts and fake people, so that it takes research about each profile to untangle them.  All profiles impacted by a fabricated genealogy needed to be included in the category for that fabricated genealogy as a caution to researchers that extra caution is needed for these profiles, but only profiles of people who themselves never existed should be in Disproven Existence.  If you can identify specific profiles that you have documented as fake people, please do, and that will be their one week notice to see if anyone can find evidence that they actually existed.  If not, they will be added to the project and all connection with other profiles in the data field will be severed.  (Links in the biographical narrative will be retained as an aid to readers and future researchers.)

Comments

The main problem profile is Sir Nathaniel Wheatleigh of Frome, co. Somerset. He didn't matriculate Magdalen College in 1586, has a coat of arms which I can't find, lived in at Tingsboro manor which we can't find, was noted as Sheriff when someone else was the Sheriff.

The book says they 'corresponded' with a Mr. A. B. Stevens of Trafalgar Square, curious if he's behind any other fabrications.

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Further down the tree, on page 16 of the book there's a real person mentioned, Rev Charles Wheatly MA, Vicar of Brent and Furneux Parnham, co. Hereford who wrote at least one book but he was the son of John of London according to the alumni record cited in CCED not Andrew.