Proposal to disconnect William Wellborn of Wilkes NC and GA from parents

Question

In June 2023, I posted comments and a G2G regarding William's parentage. I have received no response, from the profile managers nor anyone else.

As explained therein, the currently attached Maryland parents are not sourced, though they were at some point accepted by the DAR with unknown supports. Contrary to this, William's granddaughter and a great granddaughter gave his lineage in 1910 as one of the Virginia Wellborns, specifically the son of Samuel Wellborn, of Acomac County.

At the very least, his parentage is uncertain, and I have marked them as such. I am inclined to trust his granddaughter's knowledge of her own family more than the Maryland story that seems to be supported only by the fact that another William Wellborn was born there at about the same time. I have seen no evidence to connect that William with the William of NC and GA.

Are there any objections to disconnecting William from his current parents and shifting him to the Virginia line?

Answer 1

Hi Ashley. I don't have any opinion about the parentage of William Wellborn of Wilkes Co., GA, because I haven't done the research. I'm interested in the Wellborn family once they were in GA because some of them married into my families (specifically Alfred Owen Blackmar, Susan (Wellborn) Blackmar's son, married a distant cousin, Frances Dixon).

You have far more information than I about William's possible ancestors. I'm going to remove myself as one of the managers of William's profile since I have so little to contribute. The other profile manager might have more information (with sources) in order to straighten this out.

I'm sorry for the delay in replying. The summer of 2023 was very busy and I missed your previous query entirely.

Sarah

Comments

Thanks so much, Sarah. And no apology necessary. We all get busy. I've been pretty sparse on Wikitree myself over the last year. :)

I'll wait a bit to see if the other manager has anything. The Maryland theory is so wide spread that I feel it must have some stronger support somewhere, but I've been digging for quite awhile since this is my direct line, and I haven't found it yet. Hopefully there will be a flurry of interest in Y-DNA testing among the male line descendants someday soon, and we'll get it settled once and for all.

Answer 2

The biography lists two alternatives for the parents (Maryland line, Virginia line), and states: "Contemporary sources do not conclusively point to either couple as his parents." The research notes do not assess the accuracy of either alternative.

The Maryland line clearly has issues as it lists two alternatives for the death of the "father" (Maryland, North Carolina). Is this profile conflated?

The Virginia line presented in the AJC article is described there as a family tree, appears to be unsourced, and was published about 176 years after the birth and 108 years after the death of William Welborn, so not contemporaneous to the father-son relationship. The profile of Samuel Welbourne-79 of Virginia is barely sourced and does not list a wife or children.

The two alternatives for parents should be added to the Research Notes and discussed. Are reliable sources available, or can a circumstantial case be built based on reliable sources (appearance of allied families to this family in the same places), to better identify his probable parents?

Comments

Yes, I wrote that biography. I was maybe a bit too tactful, but I wasn't sure what resistance I might face from other descendants, and I've gotten myself into some fraught disagreements in the past. It looks like I needn't have worried so much here. :) I will certainly flesh out the research notes and competing parental theories as I work on this.

Contemporary sources are certainly the biggest problem we're facing here. I suspect that may be why the Maryland theory took hold, because there -is- a christening record for a William Wellborn there, who would be near the correct age to be this one. There are no birth records in the fitting time period in Virginia that I've been able to find. Land records might be the best place to look for clues, but I am not experienced with that type of research.

The AJC article was published late, yes, but it came from William's great granddaughter. The same tree was published in a work by a granddaughter's husband. Those generationally close sources have to carry more weight I would think, but of course, they aren't as good as contemporary sources would be.

I haven't done much work at all from Samuel back, because I've been stuck at trying to prove William's parents. He does have more sources on other sites though, including a will at Ancestry, assuming it's the correct Samuel. Interestingly, if he is William's father, that would make William several years older than we currently have him, since that Samuel died in 1728.

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There are certainly problems with the Samuel, son of Thomas theory, mainly that William is not named in his will. Even if his wife were pregnant when Samuel died and just did not know yet, she is named Sarah in that will, not Mary.

Another researcher mentioned in the collaboration section at FamilySearch that there were at least two Samuel Wellborns, one who died in VA and one in NC, but I haven't been able to sort out whatever sources they may have gleaned that from. The Wellborns/Welbournes were a large family though, so it's more than possible that there are branches no one's put together properly yet.