John Browning (1300) only appears in online trees - maybe time for Disputed Existence

Question

During the scan-a-thon I've gone down a rabbit hole with John Browning, supposedly born in 1300.  His son is documented and named John but there is no evidence at all (that I can find) for this profile.

If no objections, I'd like to tag and bag it as a disproven existence profile.

Answer 1

This is probably fairly reliable, members of parliament  MP's are usually fairly well documented. https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1386-1421/member/browning-john-1369-1416

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Browning_(died_1416)

Comments

Unfortunately, that source isn't for this profile.

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The profile says that this John Browning MP is a descendant of the John Brown in the profile, if one follows the father's in the profile.  This talks about John Browning MP's descendants which would lead to the person in this profile.

With a bit more research there will be more in the parliamentary and archival research about the Browning's from this area.  British history is very well documented.

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I did research, and have in the past and haven't found anything. While the grandson, the member of Parliament is documented, his grandfather was born at the end of the 13th century. There are limits to the records in this time period.

Either way, almost all of the online trees do not cite a legitimate source, only other trees. It is quite possible that a person guessed at the name, or conflated the son, the father, or the grandfather (all with the same given name), and once that tree went in the net, it became the source.

If the profile is marked as unproven, and later someone ever uncovers a record, the profile can be restored. But as it stands now, having this profile posted, and attached to proven people just creates an illusion that this profile has factual evidence for it's existence and further reinforces the feedback loop and the fallacy of the unsourced trees.

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Lynn, the problem we have is not that the man didn't exist, he clearly did.  If the son is documented, we know he had a father and we could easily change the father's name to "Unknown Browning" and put a guestimated date template on the profile.

The problem is that there are dozens of family trees online that show John Browning with concrete dates and a birth place and these details may well have been made up by an amateur genealogist who mixed up the son or grandson's data for the grandfather.  Over the next years and decades, we will have new Wikitreers come with their GED uploads and they will see that they have a John Brown, born 1300 and it matches this John Brown, 1300 and they will think that this profile is sourced or proven.  Few people research "settled" profiles.  Sometimes unsourced profiles get attention (like on this weekend).  Moving a profile out of the tree is what gets the attention for further research and/or to alert others that the existing data is incomplete, conflated, or created.

This family may be documented well but back to what year?  It seems that for 'this' family, the records only go back to about 1325.  I hope I'm wrong and that there is a record for John Browning, 1300.  But the best way to find that record isn't to leave it sitting for years "unourced" but to make it known to the community that there are research problems with this profile and to challenge Wikitreers and descendants to do the research.

Answer 2

If nobody can prove this person's existence within the one week notice period, unproven he shall be until and unless some reliable source does show up later.

Answer 3

I tend to agree with Lynn. We know that his son existed so he must have existed. I've added some notes to the son's  profile from Hutchins Hist and Antiq of Dorset. (I haven't  attempted to chase his sources up and some look to have come from  estate archives) The father  probably came from Gloucestershire. .   We don't know  his first name so that could certainly be changed to unknown. We don't know his dates either so a big estimated dates banner is necessary. (the dates on the son  don't seem to be  correct since  he was (according to the record quoted by Hutchins)  still alive almost 20 years after the current date of death on the profile)

Unfortunately Browning in it's various forms is quite a common name  so it is possible that nothing more will be found.

Comments

Thanks for your comment Helen.  The problem with changing the profile to "Uknown Browning, born about 1300" is that you are assuming facts rather than recording what the sources show.  It is possible that there was a surname change between these generations or that the father was young or very old when he had son John and the birth dates could vary to as early as 1260 to as late as 1305.  

What is more likely is that there have never been any records for this man and there never will be.  If I create a profile for him, put a concrete date and place of birth and put it on my Ancestry.com family tree, in about 10 years that date and place of birth will be replicated all over the internet.  But that doesn't mean it happened and we have to be very clinical with the data.  This is one of the reasons that Wikitreers must have a pre-1500 badge to edit these profiles because not everyone has the discipline to ignore extraneous (unsourced) data.

The requirement for a pre-1500 profile is to uses sources that are academically approved.  In other words, could you submit the bio as a University research paper or professional Journal article?  

I left some of the other reasons why the profile needs to be moved in my answer to Lynn.

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I will agree to disagree. I'm normally very proactive in wanting disputed lines marked as such and people unlinked from false ancestry. ( Edit: did you downvote my  answer by the way?; I like to know what causes down votes and I noticed that the number has gone up; spending several hours work to be downvoted for an opinion is very disheartening, my apologies if it was someone else)

 In this case (and I have a very  recent MA in local history so I'm fully aware of referencing)  I'd use the same sort of language  that  HOP uses, suggesting that John Brouyning was born in Gloucestershire (there are many records of his interests there; far more than in Dorset) I wouldn't create a father on this alone but since he is there I feel he's better acting as a place marker  than being said to have not existed; rather  in the same way that wikitree adds a father to two siblings; such a profile may have no other sources than those referring to  the children

Obviously sourcing the son and his wife adequately    is crucial particularly  as it becomes necessary to estimate one date.It is I agree, always a risky thing to do.  I've spent some time looking up this family in  Hutchins  (a usually reliable but as ever,  not  infallible secondary source .Nevertheless it's a  source often used by VIc county histories and HOP.  ) Elsewhere,  I've  been able to find a record for the death of Alice Brouyning;  1392; some 20 years after the previous profile date. 

The 1327 lay subsidy for Gloucestershire might be a fruitful place to search for the father; HOP mentions the manor of Nethercote and Slaughter as places that may have been inherited from him.(I've checked for manorial records and unfortunately none survive for the period)

(now back to the sourceathon, luckily I'm a Tortoise and our team understand rabbit holes!)

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Sorry about the downvote Helen.  It wasn't me.  I have the same 4 downvotes (given) that I've had since my first two weeks at Wikitree before I knew better.  I went back to find them to remove them but could never find the posts.  

My opinion (and my opinion only) is that downvoting is lazy and doesn't do anything but make the other person feel bad.  If I see a post I disagree with I respectfully disagree with them in the form of a comment.  If it is a post that I think is offensive or violates forum rules, I flag it.

As for downvotes, don't worry about them.  Simply disagreeing with others or being pragmatic will earn you plenty (I have 110 so I speak from experience).

Yes, back to the source-a-thon - too many rabbit holes for me today too!