Correcting Rev. George Phillips' line

Question

The father of Rev George Phillips (1593-1644) was Christopher Phillips (d. 1621, Norfolk County, Eng). There is an abundance of unproven information given in Christopher's profile(s) that needs to be deleted. It is important to do so because his son, Rev George, has many descendants and this false information is being spread to a growing number of people. Christopher's death info as well as info on 4 children are reliably sourced on his profile page. Everything else is unreliable or false. Could someone qualified please delete any existing profiles for Christopher Phillips and create (or edit) one that includes only his proven death info and his 4 proven children? I don't feel confident about doing this myself. Good sources: English Origins of New England Families, vol 3;  Genealogies and Histories of Early Watertown, by Bond. Thank you for any help with this important line.

Comments

I added the link to the profile as well as tags for England and PGM to bring greater attention to this question.

Answer 1

Hi, I take it this in reference to George Phillips-1343 and his father Christopher Phillips-1344 ?

Rather than deleting the errors, I suggest summarizing the errors and the worst-offending sources in a short but biting section.  I usually put this near the top of the profile, so it won't be missed.   Call it "Common Errors" or some such. I don't bother specifying individual internet sources, but if there's a bad old Victorian genealogy, yup, call it out.   (Note our Frauds and Fabrications category, btw )

"Unsourced internet profiles give the erroneous birthdate of..."  

Any chance you could post a rough start on this for someone to take and polish?  I see you're not on Wikitree often, but since you're up on the Philips family, it would be a big help.

Comments

hi. i believe i can aswer your questions. i stumbled across this thread on accident but im so very glad that i did. you see i a direct descendant of George and Christopher Phillips. to be exact...George was my great grandfather X14 and Christopher was my great grandfather X15....and Christopher had a son also named George Phillips. so maybe that is where the confusion stems from. I am by no means very knowledgable when it comes to my ancestors---as i have only just recently go gotten very interested and i am still learning so much. i will get back to you about the exact dates that these three men were alive asap. i actually have one of the only existing bound copies of the Phillips Family tree that was ever published. it has all of the exact dates of interest for the past 15 generations...it also has court documents, newspaper clippings, copies of old letters between family members in years past. i will get my book out of the safe deposit box tomorrow and let you know exatly what it says.

Answer 2

I love it.  "Your ancestor was on the Arbella? Is that the best you can do?"  "Well his brother should have been on the Mayflower, but he got stuck in traffic and missed the boat"

And I almost gave up when I got to the bit where Handel and Newton lived in the time of Queen Elizabeth.

It all starts here

https://www.genealogy.com/ftm/r/i/p/Richard-C-Ripley/index.html

The writer is of the persuasion that everybody with the same surname is all one big family.  So that stuff comes under Clan History rather than Genealogy.

But apart from that, we have a conflation problem.  Christopher is showing as the father of two major immigrants, George and William, with loads of descendants, but they weren't related.  They can't both have him.

It could be that the junk is coming from the William direction.  And it could be that neither of them has anything to do with the Devon people.

Perhaps just make a new profile for George's father and leave the rest for another day.

Comments

It would be easier to just remove this father since we basically know nothing about him. GMB v.1-3, p. 1446-1450 has two citation for his father (MHSP 63:194 Venn 3:355) and no mother specified. George has a entry in the ODNB, citing MHSP 63.

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I removed his father since that's the easiest solution to this problem. I should have guessed he was related to the Phillips Academies & poking around as RJ mentions there's a common legend that all the Phillips are related to each other (Clan Phillips).  

Anderson has many of profiles of people with the Phillips surname and they aren't related.

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Kirk, I think Christopher Phillips' profile should be removed because the info given for him is really from at least 2 different Christophers. Rev. George's father named Christopher Phillips has very little proven info - only his death info in 1621 and a few vitals on 4 children. The problem is that the erroneous Phillips info from the book by Ripley, referenced on Christopher's profile, keeps getting attached to Rev. George's father named Christopher. Christopher, father of Rev. George Phillips, needs a profile that can't be added to or changed without approval. I fear that's the only way to stop the perpetuation of Ripley's mistaken info on him. I am not qualified to make any of these more complicated changes. I could, however, add a new profile for Chistopher, father of George, and post what I have on him along with the reliable sources I have.