Advice about possibly incorrect pre 1700 profiles

Question

Hello all, I've recently added my ancestral tree to wikitree and managed to link to a Turner ancestor who was already in Wikitree. My earliest ancestor is (Thomas) Turner-6004. Looking on Wikitree Thomas is shown as having been born in Wolverhampton. I don't think this is the same person as the Thomas Turner who was my ancestor and was born in Tunbridge. None of these profiles have a manager, and it looks like they are the result of a gedcom upload. As a newbie I've not done any work on the pre-1700 before and feel the need for some support to try to resolve the issue.

Comments

Hi Neil. Which of the sons shown here is your ancestor? I see they are supposedly born in Wolverhampton and Kent, while he was living in Massachusetts. It looks like someone has combined two or three individuals with the same name. No doubt there were dozens of Thomas Turners in England at any given time.

---

Hi Vance,

I'm descended from John baptised 12 April 1641 at Leigh, Kent, England (this baptism is on Findmypast.co.uk)

I can tell there are several Thomases all mixed into one here but with no managers I'm at a loss as to how to extricate what I know to be my ancestral tree from the mire of the long distant past! It's not until you get 4 generations further in that Turner-5995 is managed by me. He was the son of Thomas Turner by Ann his wife. bapt Eynsford, Kent. 29 Sep 1721. After that it all gets a bit unclear.  

---

My advice would be to adopt the unmanaged profiles, if you think there's any evidence for them. If they are completely fictional, the solution is to detach them and start again.

The next step would be to add some real sources. I only glanced at what they have for Turner in Leigh, Kent, on Family search and there's a lot. Also see TNA Discovery and Kent Archives at Maidstone. After parish records, wills can be very useful.

On edit: Also the Society of Genealogists Library has transcripts of parish records. This is what they have for Eynsford:

https://s10312uk.eos-intl.eu/S10312UK/OPAC/Search/Browse.aspx?txtSearch=eynsford&IndexCode=3&SearchMethod=1

Answer 1

There was a Thomas Turner Sr. who died in Scituate in December 1688 whose death is perhaps being confused with the one on the profile for this Thomas Turner (Turner-6004) that you're refering to. 

There is no indication on the latter profile (Turner-6004) of how, when or why he died in New England when all other events in his life occurred in England, and all of his children and spouses show no link to a Colonial life. The "source" that came in with that death date & location was an Ancestry tree, so that's not considered reliable. I will remove the death information on that profile, since it's highly unlikely and unsourced. 

If your ancestor was born in Tunbridge and didn't marry either of the wives shown on Turner-6004, or have any of the attached children, I would suggest that you carefully build a new Thomas Turner supplying source information to that profile. If there are some relationships on Turner-6004 that appear to correlate to your line, advise us and we can take another look.

Comments

Neil:

                   You deserve a lot of credit for calling this issue out.

                                Roger

---

It might also be necessary to separate the children born in Leigh, Kent, from those born in Wolverhampton. The two places are almost 200 miles apart. So these are most likely two different families.

---

No real credit due on this one, Roger, but thanks. The Turners in the Massachusetts Bay area are my own family, so it didn't take much digging to find a likely candidate for that death. I'll leave it to others with more experience in English records to take it further.

---

the three children born at Leigh are in my tree, the Thomas b1654 in Wolverhampton seems to be the Cuckoo. It looks like the solution is to create a new Thomas Turner as the father of the Leigh children, then create a new Esther (unknown) as his wife. This should separate the two english branches at least. Is this something that is acceptable to do? Can I do it? Should I ask someone else to take this on?

---

I think the key to your answer is if you can find reliable sources for your work. These will be pre-1700 profiles, so you'll need something beyond "family trees" and generic sources. You could certainly reach out to the England Project for some help. BTW, they have an amazing Orphan Trail which you might want to consider joining since your ancestry is clearly in that realm. I applaud your caution working on these profiles, you're clearly being smart about asking for help & advice. 

Answer 2

Hi, Neil, and welcome to WikiTree. Yes, it does appear the profiles in question were the result of an early GEDCOM import and the sourcing isn't adequate so there is always the possibility of error.

There are a few ways to go about this. You've taken the first right step in posting in G2G. I will add Massachusetts to your tags and hopefully one of our colonial specialists will have a look at existing sources for known information on the man's origins. The other thing to do is contact the County leader for the appropriate counties in the England Project. County team contacts are here. England project itself is here. They should be able to assist in determining if a wrong connection has been made between a man of this name in England and the immigrant as well as help find the correct connection. Good luck with it. 

Comments

Excellent advice all around, T.