I also have been fretting about the fanciful nature of the genealogy I see in some lines involving people named George Clarke (not just this line).
It helps to tread cautiously when cutting family trees. I have observed that there are some people who need to be carefully convinced that the lineage they have recorded (whether it came from a book, a relative, their own creative research, or 2,000 online family trees) is wrong, or at least is unsupported by evidence. And regarding lack of evidence, remember that the fact that you or I can't find a baptism or marriage record in online sources doesn't necessarily mean that the record doesn't exist (but people who claim to have evidence should be challenged to supply their sources).
Before you cut off a person's parent connections:
- Add a boxed message to the profile to describe what you intend to do, and why. This will generate an email message to the listed profile managers.
- Write a "Disputed Parents" section (or similar title that fits the contents) and make it the first text section of the profile. In that section, describe the theories that have been advanced for the person's parentage (or whatever), say who advanced them (identify sources), and explicate the flaws in them based on citations to records, citations to high-quality genealogical publications, logic (e.g., it's not credible that the supposed mother married a 45-year-old man when she was 12 years old), etc.
- If the issues turn out to be contentious or complex, start a G2G discussion about the profile or the family.
And once there is consensus (or at least acquiescence) for the change, document the change in a message box on the page (removal of parent connections doesn't always get clearly documented in the change history) and request profile protection so the parents can't be restored willynilly.
