What do you do when you find some very muddled relationships on Wiki tree?

Question

Sorry, I'm new to wiki tree and am trying to sort out how things work

It started the other day. I decided to do my bit and see if I could add a source for an unsourced profile. i chose the area where most of my relatives come from

Temperance Braye. Bray-899. I quickly found a reference to her baptism and then went on to find something about her. Since I didn't want to tread on toes,I wrote my findings in the comments. Carole Partridge the profile manager has responded very quickly and incorporated these into the profile .  At the same time I made some comments on her father in law Crow-24s profile ( I think there is a conflation of two people here)

I should have left it but decided to look at the next unsourced profile which just happens to be Jemima Waldegrave d in law of Temperance. Her husband John was an MP playing a part both before the execution of Charles I and in the restoration of Charles II so I found it interesting and there is a fair bit of documentation. I decided to update the profile (no manager) I've included a list of children; most fairly well sourced.

I've just now looked at the links to her children . Two are listed correctly as Thomas (2nd Baron Steane) and Jemima (the 'my lady' of Samuel Pepys) but the profiles are stubs. The other, Dorothy, didn't come up in my research. What happens when I press on the link to the children  is that  I find  a lot of  other children suppossedly  born to John Crewe ; the only link seems to be is the name Crewe. When I look at them some of them seem to be born in Virginia with a different mother.

I might of course be wrong and missed somet odd marriage  but  John Crewe died at age 82 lies beside his wife Jemima Waldegrave  who died at 74, in the chapel at Steane . There seem to be a lot of people grafted onto the wrong tree.

Apologies to Carole because I'm sure that she probably realises that there is a mix up. What I would like to know is how it gets sorted out!

Comments

It looks like you are well on your way to becoming a highly valued contributor here, Helen.

For starters on your current challenge, I suggest that you adopt the orphaned profile of Jemima Crew. Then work on (1) documenting the information you have regarding this woman (use the text of the profile) and (2) identifying the bits that belong to some other person(s). When you have enough information about those other people to create vestigial profiles for them, you can do so!

Answer 1

Thanks, Helen! I agree with Ellen that you are already a great asset to WikiTree. And no, I had no clue about the other messed up relationships. When I adopted Temperance's profile, I had neatened it up and stopped there.

WikiTree has many mixed up families with invalid connections, including people who appear to be married to their grandchildren. Sorting it out is like untangling a big ball of yarn. I usually have to keep written notes and diagrams.

Once you have sorted out a situation, it's often important to explain the confusing situation at the top of each profile, to minimize the chance it will happen again.

A more common problem is when a family has two or three children of the same name, but no one realizes that they should explain the potential for confusion by adding a brief note to each child's profile. Without a note, birthdates get changed, marriages get ascribed to children who died in infancy, and inappropriate merges happen.

We also have profiles for people who have never existed. One family I worked on had an imaginary child who was mentioned in one book, then perpetuated through online trees. The other profile manager and I decided to let her profile remain, with an explanation that she didn't exist. We knew that if we removed it, someone else would add it later.

Comments

Wonderful answer!

Good advice on the nonexistent child. You may know this already but there's a {{nonexistent}} template for such profiles.

Answer 2

Unfortunately it seems to be a common problem, that an emigrant from Britain to North  America in the 17th or 18th centuries is linked to a noble family based solely on the same or similar surname.

These incorrect links proliferate on the web, (not helped by some of these ancestries that found there way into print).  The best way to challenge these is to do what you have done, collect information to prove that John Crewe couldn't have gone to Virginia and fathered the children connected to him.

Like Ellen and Carole, I think you have done a fantastic job so far on this issue.

Answer 3

Apart from the Crewe issues, there were two Jemima Waldegraves.  The other one is http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Waldegrave-103.

We have a problem here - both of them are claiming the christening at Lawford in 1602.

Arm your sources (preferably on stun, to start with).

If they're left with the same birthdate, they'll get merged.

PS The two Jemimas were 3rd cousins.  Yours looks like favourite, since her grandfather had Lawford Hall (he's in Richardson under Clopton). 

 

 

Comments

Thank you everyone; I think the muddled ball of string analogy is absolutely right.

Still not sure how you go unlinking people. (even my home software gives repeated warnings at each step of the way).

I've just looked up Jemima Waldegrave number 2. There are definitely  two of them born at about the same time.

 Fortunately the original  marriage allegation is on Ancestry. She was 'abt' 20 years old in 1626 so she was born in abt 1606. Her father is Thomas Waldegrave from Bures ad Montem  in Essex.

Just to make things awkward though Free Reg has a  Jamyma Waldegrave d of Thomas  baptised 15 April 1600 in St Mary's Bures Suffolk ( the villages inconveniently straddle the border)

Husband was Herbert Pelham from Boston in Lincolnshire and did go to America (but apparently came back again)

 Essex records office  has indexes to  documents showing that Thomas Waldegrave owned the manor of Ferrers in Bures (there is also a Mount Bures hamlet) . Edward Waldegrave owned both manors in Lawford (Lawford Hall and Dale Hall)

The two are from the same family but it seems to be a large one.

I think I'll make this a long term project though because I can see it will become very frustrating. It does make a change investigating people against a background of national history My real ancestors were more likely to be subjected to law rather than making it.

PS Free reg also had 4 baptisms for children of Herbert

Waldegrave bap Dec 1627

Jemimah bap 24 June 1630

Nathanaell 5  Feb 1631/2

Penelope 25 April 1633

(the family is very parsimonious in their use of Christian names; the other Jemima has a Waldegrave, a Nathanaell and a Jemima )

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Many thanks for all that.  I've made appropriate provisional amendments at the Bures end.

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Just to add that the 1626 marriage licence for the Jemima, https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Waldegrave-103, who married Herbert Pelham not only gives her age then as about 20 but also records that she was marrying with her father's consent: the mention of his consent would indicate she was not of age.