Merging profiles with different Last names at birth

Question

I recently ran across a Bently family line that seems to be a duplicate of my Bentley family line.  The misspelled Bently line was created prior to the Bentley line with the correct spelling.  Should I initiate a merge and then merge into the correct name spelling?

The two lines I believe should be merged begin with

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Bently-16

and

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Bentley-2142

I would like some advice before I start the merge process since it appears the problem is the spelling of the last name at birth.

Thanks

John [[Bentley-2133]]

Answer 1

The first thing you have to do is decide on which last name at birth to use. He probably doesn't have a birth document and it doesn't look as though he has a baptismal record either, so you need to look at other contemporary documents. Look at all the name spellings you can find on his documents. The deed you have on the page seems to be spelled Bentlye. What does Boddie use? (although Boddie is not considered 100% reliable). What's on the ships roster?

Then it should be discussed here and with the other managers of his and maybe his children's profiles. What do their birth/baptism records (if any) have? The other line of Bently's may be the way, the other family spelled it 100 years down the line from William, but some people may be attached to that spelling and think that it's correct. If you talk to the other manager first, she could go oops I spelled it wrong, and be perfectly willing to merge into Bentley.

When you decide which last name at birth to use, have a leader project protect the profile to protect the spelling of the last name, and make sure that the spelling you don't use is in the "other last name" field

Comments

Also note: "Bently" should not be treated as a misspelling (although it does look that way to our modern eyes). It's simply an alternative spelling, from an era when spellings weren't standardized.

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Thank you for your response, which makes perfect sense.  I will put together my evidence for the spellings and then post my results here and see what others think.  Thanks.

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A merger has now been proposed.  I went ahead and clicked Unmerged Matches on my Bentley.  Is that the best thing to do until we have a discussion about the spelling to use?

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It looks to me like you have ample justification for proposing a merge toward the profile with the Bentley spelling. Indeed, it was the profile manager of the Bently profile who proposed that merge earlier. :-)

Bentley is a valid interpretation (if not the only valid interpretation) of the spelling on the earliest extant records. Spellings were inconsistent in that time period, so there's often no single "correct" answer.

So you can proceed with the merge:

1. request project protection for the selected destination profile
2. propose the merge
3. after the merge is complete, make sure that both profile managers have profile manager status on the surviving profile

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Since earlier I clicked the option to make the Bently/Bentley an unmerged match, how do I properly merge them now.  Also how do I tell which direction the purposed merger is going, and which one will be the final mergered ID.  I know typically its the smallest number ID becomes the final, but in this case Bentley has the higher number.  Thanks for the input and help so far.

John

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To remove the unmerged match and propose a merge:

1. Go to Bently-16, scroll down to the Unmerged Match at the bottom of the screen, and click on "remove."
2. Go through the process of removing the match (don't let the "are you sure?!?" messages scare you).
3. When the match has been removed, one of the options on the screen will be an invitation to initiate a new merge between the two profiles. Click on that, and you'll be on your way!

We merge to the lowest numbered profile for the selected LNAB. Numbering doesn't override the need for a good last name.  If I accidentally create a profile with a misspelled last name (maybe it's Smiht-1) and discover that the person already has a profile with an appropriate name (such as Smith-67123), no one would suggest that I need to merge toward the misspelled profile just because it has a lower number!

Project protection on the destination profile is recommended because this will ensure that the merge goes in the selected direction. When you need to merge profiles with different LNABs and the destination profile isn't project-protected, it's important to place a comment on the profile indicating the direction of the merge and explaining the reason, then hope that the merge doesn't get completed by someone who doesn't bother to read comments.

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What Ellen said

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I did as you suggested and seem to have successfully started a new merge.   He (Bentley-4142)  is already in the US Southern Colony Project.  Does that count as project protection or do I need to do something else?

I've also noticed that Bently-16 has a number of children, grand children, etc as Bentley-4142.  Same name issue, can we merge those too or do we need to prove which spelling was used for each subsequent generation.  This is my first merge so thanks for the help.

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I've PPP'd (project protected) it. A leader has to do it. I think you're ok in this case going with Bentley on the sons Richard and William. They are going to be in the same name situation as the father. When you get to newer generations, actual records may exist to prove the Last Name at Birth. I'll PPP the two sons also.

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Thanks for all your help.

Answer 2

I have found a variety of sources that support the spelling of Bentley over Bently.  

Let me begin with the deed of 1624  http://www.wikitree.com/photo.php/4/44/Bentley-2142.jpg .  In the left hand margin the spelling appears to me as Bentley.  I agree that the spelling that begins on line 12 does look like Bentlye.  However, in neither case does the spelling appear as Bently.  I found this document online at the Online Catalog at the Library of Virginia, which has the record cataloged at Bentley not Bently (in other documents they do catalog with Bently, but not in the case of this deed)

 [[http://lva1.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/F/VYMG51ERFUT84PT4JNPH3V6UL528713XVYMB1U9Q9HTDMNXLXT-03644?func=full-set-set&set_number=000712&set_entry=000004&format=999]].

The transaction of this deed was also listed as Bentley in http://archive.org/stream/originallistsofp00hottuoft/originallistsofp00hottuoft_djvu.txt

 

The muster list for the Jacob, which appears to be part of the Jamestown 1624/5 Muster Records indicate that a William Bentlie came over on the Jacob

http://www.virtualjamestown.org/Muster/search.muster.cgi?start_page=0&search_type=basic&database=muster_1624&last=Bentlie&first=&muster=&age-op=&age1=&age2=&month=&year=&date=

The site http://www.packrat-pro.com/ships/jacob.htm also has the Bentlie spelling.

So while the muster list does not support either Bently or Bentley but brings in another possibility.

The Minutes of the Council and General Court of
Colonial Virginia uses Bentley not Bently

"Yt is ordered y' a warrant be fent for M r W" Bentley to Teftifie his knowledg between M r Allington and M r fflinton, to be heere one mondye the ix' h of January now next enfwinge." 

https://ia700409.us.archive.org/4/items/minutesofcouncil00virg/minutesofcouncil00virg_djvu.txt

William Bentley was placed on trial for the murder of Thomas Godby (whose land Williams was next to according to the deed).  A detailed account of the murder and trial can be found at

 http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~swva/Godbydeath.htm

While I do not have access to the sources this person used, I will note that the name is again spelled Bentley not Bently.

William Bentley was also a member of the House of Burgesses. The two sources I have found list William with the Bentley spelling.  I believe both of these cites are to Hening I, 137-139.  

http://vagenweb.org/hening/vol01-06.htm

http://www.newrivernotes.com/topical_books_1902_virginia_colonialvirginiaregister.htm 

 

Finally, In Southern Historical Families by Boddie, Appendix V The Bently (Bentley) Family, Boddie uses Bentley except in two places, the title of the appendix and once in the first paragraph of the appendix.

I will also point out that the sources who refer to William Bentley coming over as part of the First Supply in 1608, use the spelling of Bentley.  I have not gone into detail on this because one could argue this is not the same William who arrived in 1624.  But again there is no indication of the spelling Bently.

The profile for William Bently lists Boddie as a repeated source.  Yet the printed out copy of the appendix I have does not support the Bently spelling.  The other source is  created through the import of paf910.ged , I have no way to know if the GED has good sources or not.

I hope this helps.  I am open to what others think.  I did not mean to imply that the Bently spelling is wrong.  In this case, however, I believe the available evidence supports the Bentley spelling.

Comments

Since making the last post, I discovered another source which supports the spelling of Bently not Bentley.  It appears I cited this source prior, so the spelling of both William Bently and Bentley appears in the Minutes of Council and General Court of Colonial Virgina.  It can be found at:  https://ia700409.us.archive.org/4/items/minutesofcouncil00virg/minutesofcouncil00virg.pdf

My oversight was not intentional.

Thanks

John

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For future reference, when citing a book (whether in a WikiTree profile or in G2G), it's helpful to provide a page reference. And to save other people the trouble of downloading an entire PDF, you can even give URL links to specific pages in books on Internet Archive -- for example, the first citation to William Bentl(e)y in that book is on page 81, and https://archive.org/stream/minutesofcouncil00virg#page/80/mode/2up is a link to pages 80 and 81.

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Thanks, I will include the page numbers in the future here and add them to the profile if I left them out.

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This is good John, If you don't hear any nay sayers in the next few days. Let me know and I'll PPP Bentley and you can propose the merge.