Do you Know Your Number?

Question

How many Questionable Gateway Ancestors do you have in your direct lines? If you can answer that question, you Know Your Number. 

A Questionable Gateway Ancestor is a colonial immigrant who shows royal/Magna Carta lines and doesn't appear in our research. Proving who a colonial immigrant was in Europe, before they emigrated, is a large challenge for genealogists. Right now, about 250 colonial immigrants have been identified who have well documented royal/Magna Carta lines/family trees. Genealogists have called these colonial immigrants Gateway Ancestors as they offer a Gateway to Magna Carta, Plantagenents, William the Conqueror, the Crusades, etc., etc. 

On WikiTree, there are thousands of Questionable Gateway Ancestors. We started a sub-project of Magna Carta to examine them (see this link). Over 95% of what we've researched have turned out to be bogus. 

We want your help in identifying more and in getting involved in the g2g discussions when we research them. When we showed the Leaders the Questionable Gateway Ancestors in their own trees (see here) we gave an example of how to identify them at the bottom of the page. You can do this to find ones in your own tree. Or we can have folks help you find them. When you find one, it needs to be tagged with Category:Questionable_Gateway_Ancestors. Then we can research them, removing most, and improving the quality of our tree.

Having a high number is not a reflection on your ability as a genealogist. It just means that your family tree is connected to areas with a lot of colonial immigrants, like the Puritan Great Migration project or Southern Colonies. Ideally, your number would be zero. 

Do you Know Your Number? We are challenging you to figure it out. Let us know what it is!

PS - My own has dropped from 26 to 11!

Comments

While I don't have any (known) Gateway Ancestors, I think this is great!  We want to have the most accurate information possible here on WikiTree.

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Thanks for the positive feedback, Nan.

A quick glance at your family tree shows that you do have at least one Questionable Gateway Ancestor. So, your number is at least one. Could there be more?  

At the bottom of this page you can see an example of how to search your tree for them. (I'll give you a hint - the one that I found right away was a direct ancestor of the first great-grandfather of yours that I checked: William G Lambert-2066)

The Questionable that I found in your tree had a fairly typical family tree - direct descendant of Magna Carta surety barons the Clares (see Clare-673), Saher de Quincy-226, Robert de Vere-309 as well as King John Lackland (Plantagenet-143) and the notable William Marshal-4. Outside of Magna Carta, there was also at least 1 direct descent to King Edward III (Plantagenet-70).

Happy hunting!

 

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I definitely applaud what you guys are doing and I have no doubt that I have numerous questionable Gateway Ancestors, given the sheer volume of New England ancestors that I have.  But honestly, I feel this is an area of weakness in my own genealogy knowledge and technique and I don't have much confidence that I could identify which of these ancestors were questionable.  Once you get into pre-colonial documentation and sources, I'm just out of my depth.

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Well, I did say "known"  -- now I know better!

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Kyle, for this project you don't have to know how to do early research; you just have to know how to use the relationship finder to track down immigrants with royal lineages.   One way to do it is explained here (scroll down toward the bottom): http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Working_List_of_Questionables

Then check if the immigrant is already on the list of proven gateway ancestors here: http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Gateway_Ancestors_-_Magna_Carta_Project

If not, then add the Questionable category to the immigrant: You enter the following at the top of the profile (above the biography): [[Category:Questionable_Gateway_Ancestor]]

This will automatically add the immigrant to the list of questionable gateway ancestors here: http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Questionable_Gateway_Ancestors

And that's where people like me come in: I've been going through this list, checking information, doing research, and starting G2G threads for discussion with others.  If anyone sends me a message after adding the "Questionable" category to their immigrant ancestor, I'll put that person at or near the top of my research list.

I've found dozens and dozens of bogus lineages, but I have also found four or five immigrants who might actually have good lineages.  In case anybody is interested, here are Questionables who might eventually be confirmed as gateway ancestors: 

Henry Awbrey http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Awbrey-3

Evan Ragland http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Ragland-31

James Veatch http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Veatch-79
 

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As far as I can tell, I have one, Fry-579, and she is extremely questionable I believe. I went ahead and tagged her though!

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John - Thanks for the great explanation.

Kyle - I have New England ancestry, too, and that is where I discovered almost all on my list. John's explanation on finding them should help. Let us know if you want help finding a couple to get you started.

Jayme - Way to go! Find more!!! :)

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John - Thank you for that information.  This is most helpful.  I too don't believe I have any Gateway Ancestors, at least from what I have uncovered so far on my family tree, however, my mother is heavily English as well as some Scottish.  I would love to volunteer for the Magna Carta project but is a bit beyond a newbie like me on WikiTree.  I hope to contribute in the upcoming  months once I become  more familar.  I must say, I'm very impressed with the work done by the researchers here on WikiTree. I love the collaboration done here.

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So, I found one, but he's already on the Working List of Questionables as removed (Porter-152).  So I don't need to do anything with him, right, just keep looking for more?

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Nan -

That's right. Porter-152 has had the royal/Magna Carta lines removed. (Good to know that happened if his lines pop back up someday)

You can keep hunting for more!

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Jayme - It looks like your number probably is 1. That would make you the first person to answer the question!

Kyle - You are correct - you do have a bunch. Three of four of the first great grandparents of yours all had one. Where there is one, there is usually more. Want the three that I found or would you like to try hunting them down yourself?

James - You have them, too. Want a hint or do you want to go hunt them down?

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Two great great grandparents checked, two connections found, and both seem to fit into the questionable category: Perkins-50 and Warner-253.

I feel like there's also another shoe to drop with each of these, in that each of my 2X great grandparents could have more than one of these connections.  So by using the tool, I am getting the closest relationship among them, but there are likely to be others.  Fix one and another one takes its place.

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PM Eyestone.. Yes, by all means give me a hint. I think you might be suggesting Robert Clarke, the Surveyor General of Maryland.  I do question the British link to the Clerke's. They appear to be different families from different regions of England, even though on the tree other researchers are linking them together.

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In quickly digging into all four of your family trees (Nan, Kyle, Jayme, and James)... all four of you do excellent work. I'm familiar with Jayme from recruiting her onto Magna Carta and the wonderful work she has done there. All four of you create profiles that are great examples for WikiTree. I'm glad to see that you're active in projects and volunteering. We need more folks like the four of you!

James - That's the one I saw, too. Clarke-458. You want to tag it? 

Kyle - When you plug your great grandfather, Dane-180, into the relationship finder with Quincy-226 (MCSB Saher de Quincy), you'll see Warner-253 in the line. You could wait until that one is cleared up, or you could go back to Dane-180's family tree and search among his other ancestors for relationships. Repeat this process among your different great-grandparents and you'll find a bunch. Perkins-50 was not one of the first three that I noticed, btw.  

 

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PM Eyestone - Thank  you for the compliment.  I'm still a work in progress on WikiTree but it seems I learn each day I'm on here. Right now I'm going through all my names, and some medieval profiles I have, and see that they are consistent according to the WikiTree format  I see some wonderful research done here,  and I have read over the Magna Carta Project - Basic Camp.  I was most impressed.   Yes, I will tag Robert Clarke, The Surveyor General.   I see where we are 13th cousins through Avery-Morse-Thomas King, that is, if the information in the trees are accurate.

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PM, Perkins-50 came up when I was looking at my 2X great grandmother, Caroline Goodwin.  I've also noted that Kendall-28 and Southworth-111 are ancestors that show descendancy from Quincy but are not on the proven list.  I'm bouncing around among my 2nd and 3rd great grandparents because I know some of these lines go further back than others.

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The following are all found to be questionable as well using my 3X great grandparents:  Partridge-308, Danforth-77, Sherman-357 and Lee-42.

I may keep going as I'm warming to this project

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I am very interested in finding out how many fake gateway forefathers i have. According to Wikitree, I have blood relationships with most of the Royal houses of Europe. A couple of them i already knew from my own research and consider them to be trustworthy lines (as always, unless proven otherwise...), but for the authenticity of most of my royal relationships i blindly trust Wikitree's relationship finder. I just had an eye operation and cannot yet resume intense research. And i find the example given of seeking out Gateway forefathers to be rather complicated. So i would gladly ask for help in determining my ''number''!

Regards, Albertus

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Kyle - You've now found 2 of the original 3 that I spotted in my quick search. Warner-253 and Partridge-308. You are getting the hang of it!

I just looked at Partridge-308, and I would look at Partridge-314 and his wife (as it appears on WikiTree), Harcourt-105. Partridge-314 is an unsourced, orphaned profile. Richardson has Harcourt-105 married to Richard Lane-1183, with no mention of a Partridge husband. We'll take a deeper dive on this when the time comes.

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Albertus - Happy to take a look through your tree and hunt for Questionables. I'll let you know what I find.

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Albertus -

I found 10 Questionables in your tree with my first pass. Coggins-145, Graham-638, Hayes-388, Clark-307, Cushman-136, Massey-294, Hayden-160, Clarke-42, Peckham-4, and Hall-1618.

Wonderful work on your profiles! Have you ever tried to prove your Mayflower line?

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Thank you so much, PM Eyestone! I shall look into those Questionables. I'll mark those that i manage as ''Questionable''. My deceased maternal aunt Joan Fuller tried for many years to find the link between our forefather James L. Fuller (born abt 1818 in NY) to the two Mayflower Fuller brothers, and i too have now and again searched intensely for the missing link, i.e., the parents of my gr.gr.grandfather James L. Fuller, but to no avail. I have through Wikitree been connected to a Mayflower link on my father's side, but have not yet had the time to research that line, in order to prove it. In the last seventeen years i have spent most of my energy and time researching other blood lines, of which there are so many, such as my Dutch and German ancestors, my more recent Yorkshire ancestors. My paternal surname line is Irish, but i have had to let it be, as i cannot go further back than my great-great-grandfather, as i do not know the precise county and village of origin, nor his mother's name. And so, as ill luck would have it, my two most important lines, my mother's direct paternal line Fuller and my father's direct paternal line McNamara, both end at my great-great-grandfathers, whilst i have been able to bring many other lines back several centuries and further. Thank you for the kind words regarding the work on my profiles!

PS. I am now controlling those ''Gateway Ancestors'' one by one, but have already come across one [[Massey-294|Thomas Massey]] , who is definitely authentic, and not spurious. I have ample sources proving his existance and emigration to Pennsylvania from Cheshire, England. Unfortunately, when i was creating my own profiles, i was forced to link my forefather James Massey to already pre-existing profiles of his father Thomas Massey and mother Phebe Taylor, both of which are managed by someone other than myself. Not daring to add anything to those profiles, or clean them up, i added a biographical note for THOMAS MASSEY at the profile of his son JAMES MASSEY. Do i have the right to go and clean up Thomas Massey and add sources and a biography, at his own profile, even though another manages it?  How can i have the tag of QUESTIONABLE removed from Thomas Massey? Thank you in advance, Albertus

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Just jumping in really quick--a profile manager really is only meant to 'manage'. He does not 'control' or dictate what happens to the profile once it is created. Since this is all one tree that we are all contributing to, I would only assume that the profile manager would be grateful for any improvements that could be made. It's always courteous to leave a comment or shot a quick message over if the change is going to be a major one (altering parent/child relationships/a birth/death date by a significant amount). Hope that helps!

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Thank you, Jayme Arrington, for your observation!

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One more point -- Thomas Massey's profile manager has made very few contributions recently.  It seems that she is just doing the occasional merge, so she will probably be pleased if you pick up the ball and run with it.

But to remove the "Questionable" tag, what we have to do is to prove an entire lineage back from Massey to a Magna Carta baron.  The place to start is with his parents -- is that link in his lineage proven?  His mother looks awfully young to have been anybody's mother, but perhaps that was just faulty data entry.

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I have three that I know of, four counting each of mother/son.

First the one that is not independant, Dungan. The bogus Dungan line itself has been deleted with EXTREME PREJUDICE i.e. big and bold. That leaves his mother,

1) Frances Latham. This could be real. I've looked at it closely. The link to England is, of course, very solid indeed. Then there is a bit of iffiness about a father, but the grandfather is solid. Then we have a line of shadows back through interesting people to the royal/aristocrat part. The weak link is Philip. Is the son of Philip really his son? Is this Philip the same a the real Philip of his purported father? There is purported evidence in the form of quotes of church windows "now demolished". Before Philip its solid.

2) Rebecca Holbrook. This looks bogus to me. I've never had a parentage for her before her father.

3) Clement Weaver, #2's husband. Again we have one of those "grandfather is probably or possibly  secure, intermediary could be one of two" cases. Once through that there is a long Visitation that goes back to one of those "name's the same": Bohun, which gets that miraculous connection to everybody in the nobility. Worth a good look??

The problem with finding more is that Wikitree won't let you generate a Gedcom to compare to your own, that is of any use, because it leaves out people for whom you are not manager of at least have some lesser role. So its either write a bot to walk the trees (which I have actually done for some sites) or do it by hand. I've found other fanciful connections to Britain, the worst of which I deleted on Wikitree, with no complaints, as in general the people who copied them in from Ancestry.com long since stopped playing around in Wikitree (I checked!). But those were not important gateways,

 

 

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I am saddened that some of them may be incorrect but found myself finding a new "toy" to play with. LOL I am going through starting at the bottom, and working on all those not related by blood to me but in my tree. I hope I do not find more but now I just have to check.

On 2 lines, I found 5 and marked them into the link.

Answer 1

I both LOVE and HATE this project at the same time!  Great project here on wikiTree, great project!  Mags