Geni.com and Wikitree disagree; who do I believe?

Question

On both Geni.com and Wikitree, I tracked lineage to John Thornhill, 1180-1249.  They both say that his mother was Alice Senlis, DOB 1145 (Geni) or 1150 (Wikitree) and DOD 1204, but they give Alice different parents and ancestors.  Who do I believe?

Answer 1

Great question Mary.  It all comes down to the sourcing.

Believe the source.  Which has the best source?  If neither, then believe neither.

Comments

Thanks for the star Stu 

Answer 2

I wouldn't believe anything that tracked lineage to 1145. In fact, I wouldn't track anything to 1145.

Comments

William of Normandy.

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Royal lines aside, I don't believe it. And I don't believe very many people can trace to royal lines with reliable sources.

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Well, y'see, you said : 

I wouldn't believe anything that tracked lineage to 1145. In fact, I wouldn't track anything to 1145.

answered by Ryan Ross

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So I was offering a lineage that is proven that far back. 

I made no mention of commoners such as myself ever linking to that line. 

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Here are the sources for Alice Senlis on WikiTree: 
 

• WikiTree profile UNKNOWN-101807 created through the import of CORDELL 20110806_2011-08-21.ged on Aug 22, 2011 by David Cordell. See the Changes page for the details of edits by David and others.

• Source: S17 Author: Brøderbund Software, Inc. Title: World Family Tree Vol. 3, Ed. 1 Publication: Name: Release date: February 9, 1996; NOTESource Medium: Family Archive CD CONT CONT Customer pedigree. CONT
• Source: S6 Title: cordell 20020723.FTW NOTESource Medium: Other CONT

1. ↑ Source: #S17 Page: Tree #6122 Data: Text: Date of Import: Dec 16, 1998
2. ↑ Source: #S6 Page: Tree #6122 Data: Text: Date of Import: Dec 16, 1998
3. ↑ Source: #S17 Page: Tree #6122 Data: Text: Date of Import: Dec 16, 1998
4. ↑ Source: #S6 Page: Tree #6122 Data: Text: Date of Import: Dec 16, 1998
5. ↑ Source: #S17 Page: Tree #6122 Data: Text: Date of Import: Dec 16, 1998
6. ↑ Source: #S6 Page: Tree #6122 Data: Text: Date of Import: Dec 16, 1998
7. ↑ Source: #S17 Page: Tree #6122 Data: Text: Date of Import: Dec 16, 1998
    

Absolute garbage. Gibberish. No primary source to be seen. So yes, I stand by what I said. 

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The same for her son's profile: random assertions, no real source. Badly formatted.

His children's profiles all have either no source, one or two dubious secondary sources, or unclear sources.

This is not "tracing" anything. The whole line posits loads of assertions with evidence that is paper-thin.

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There are a lot of real history books written about Simon and his family. He supported Matilda, daughter of Henry I in her battles against Stephen. You can get all the necessary information from the library when the corona crisis lockdowns are over.

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I don't see very many of them cited here. Moreover, unless you can locate and read primary source materials supporting every step of your supposed connections to these far-flung lines, you have no business tracing to any medieval genealogy. Otherwise, you're just copying and can't make assertions from a position of knowledge.

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I agree 110% with Ryan. There are all sorts of converging studies, based on more or less simple models, converging maths and genetics, to say that we (meaning by we, anyone with some European ascendancy, which is I think the case of over 99,9% of WikiTree profiles) are all cousins before 1400, and have basically the same set of ascendants around 1000. The difference is just between those who can document it and those who can't.

I rarely venture before 1700 myself, and only for birth dates of people who died after 1700. I think it's enough to find common cousins with anyone here, and it's enough work. I have more than a hundred ancestors back in 1700, each with hundreds if not thousands of descendants, enough to fill a life of a genealogist through a period mostly well documented by public sources.

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@Eddie : the only sources I trust (and not 100% proof, tere are so many written errors) are documents recorded and signed by living witnesses at the time of events : birth, marriage and death records. Too many alleged filiations rely on single books of which authority is just acquired with time, and default anything else. I won't trust any of them at face value, even if they have been written in good faith by serious authors.

I've sticked to this position based on my grandfather's story. Due to a confusion of given names with his brother, he was declared killed in WW1, mort pour la France, his name was engraved in golden letters on the stone of his village's memorial. He died in 1959 in his bed, in the room next to mine. See https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Vatant-3