Four Quakers called Miller emigrated from the north of Ireland to Pennsylvania in fairly quick succession in the early 1700s. Some genealogies like Potts' Our family ancestors assert that they were near relatives and claim or imply that one or more of them was related to a Quaker family called Miller which had previously migrated from Yorkshire in England to Westmeath in central Ireland. Unfortunately, the link to the Westmeath family is demonstrably false.
The Ireland Quaker team and the Quaker project have been investigating the facts which we document in a new freespace page.
As a result of this investigation, some relationships now shown on Wikitree are confirmed, but many others are wrong. Some profiles also need to be changed.
- Two of the migrants, James Miller-227 and Gawen/Gayen Miller-5638 are confirmed as brothers, children of Robert Miller-75508 and Elizabeth Unknown-513907. There are some more sources to be added and James Miller's profile should be cleaned up. Some other Irish Quaker Millers who were probably siblings of theirs can be identified.
- Their father Robert Miller-75508 is currently shown, without sources, as the son of Patrick Miller-29807 born in East Lothian, Scotland and died in either Virginia in Scotland. There is no evidence for this. Instead it is much more likely that Robert was the son of another Gawen Miller who lived nearby in Ulster and whose will was proved there in 1685. The link to the current father should be cut.
- The American genealogies also describe Samuel Miller and his wife, said to have been a sister of Andrew Moore. This is plainly both Samuel Miller-22117 and also Samuel Miller-66158. These two need to be merged. The parents shown to the first are plainly wrong and there is no real evidence to support the 'said to have been' about his wife, whose LNAB should properly be unknown. Both these profiles have incorrect children who need to be detached. Although this Samuel came from the same part of Ulster as James and Gawen/Gayen, there is no clear evidence that they were brothers; the possibility of a link between them should be noted on their profiles.
- The final of the four migrants was John Miller-13177. As stated above, he was not the son of the Westmeath couple. His link to these parents therefore needs to be broken. He has also acquired an erroneous second wife who needs to be removed and sixteen children compared with nine in the records. His profile needs to be re-written. There is nothing in the Irish records other than the shared surname and Quaker faith to support a family link between him and the other three.
- The person now shown as his father, John Miller-5644 needs to have his real son John (who died unmarried in Westmeath in 1708) re-instated. His profile correctly states that he was born in Yorkshire. His place of birth needs to be corrected to match that and the rubbish in his profile deleted. The people currently shown as his parents are plainly wrong (as are the people shown as their parents and grand parents - the whole construction is clearly nonsense) and need to be removed.
For more details see the freespace page.
I now plan to make comments on all the relevant profiles linking both here and to the freespace page before making changes to the profiles concerned.
Comments on this analysis, the profiles etc would be welcome here, on in the comments sections of the freespace page or the individual profiles.
