I was researching a distant cousin's ancestors and ran into an interesting problem as I went up her tree. Once I got to her great grandfather Andrew Jackson Carter, I could not find any other information about where he came from. I added his wife, and then as I started researching, I realized a similar profile was already on WikiTree but married to a different man, Albert H. Glasford--but their son was listed as a Carter. After I made contact with the creator of the other profiles, she thinks she has determined through DNA and other records (which are not sourced on WikiTree at this time because she hadn't told her family what she had found yet) that Mr. Glasford murdered his wife in Illinois and then escaped to Texas and changed his name. So, I'm not sure whether to merge the records or keep both and link to each other (similar to the adoption scenario).
Everything I read seems to indicate that there should only be one profile, but it seems pretty messy to put his name as Albert H. "Andrew Jackson" Carter formerly Glasford in one merged record. I also hesitate to merge them since I'm not 100% convinced that he is identified correctly.
For now, I have cleaned up the two records so that they explain the situation and link to each other, but it makes more sense to me to have one profile for Andrew Jackson Carter, as he was known to his wife and descendants, and make a note that he may be the same man as Albert H. Glasford (with a link to his profile) and then have his biological ancestors listed from there. But then, what do we do with the wife and kids; I would personally treat it like a cenotaph on Find A Grave and link them all to Mr. Carter, since that's proven, and Mr. Glasford would simply be a potential link.
In the text for DNA confirmations, I listed him as Albert Glasford (aka A.J. Carter), as shown on his son's profile.
Does anyone have an example of a scenario like this that they've already done on WikiTree?
