Symon de Groot is just fantasy

Question

Symon de Groot is constructed as link between the famous Dutch family de Groot and the New-Netherland settler Symon Symonse Groot. I doubt this is conform to the quality standard of WT. It would be better to disconnect him from the de Groot family. This connection is fake.

Comments

I removed the "fraud" tag after seeing Klaas's comment.

Answer 1

As an American with Groot ancestry in New Netherland, I agree that there is no basis for the Symon de Groot  profile, but I wouldn't call it "fraud." Rather, I call it a collection of errors and confusion, probably inspired by the unsourced webpage https://www.genealogy.com/forum/surnames/topics/degroot/67/, which presents a seemingly plausible family history that has led WikiTreers to seek supporting evidence. 

There's been a lot of confusion about who the Symon de Groot profile was supposed to represent. Exploration of the profile history reveals that the name of the person profiled has at various times shifted between Hugo, Symon, Symon Huygensz, Symon Symonse, and Hugo Symonse; his birthplace has moved around Germany and Nederland; and his life dates have varied (born 1581, born 1602, born 1604, born 1608, born 1610, born 1615, died 1645, died 1650, died 1670, died 1699).

It would be nice to be able to "merge away" the Symon de Groot profile, but I think we may need to keep it as a case of "Uncertain Existence" to prevent it from beingc created again by one of the people who continue to find this person (or someone like him) in online genealogies.  A long time ago the profile was claimed by the Dutch Roots (now Netherlands) Project because some Dutch WikiTreers were eager to find evidence for the genealogy that some descendants were hoping to prove. If the Netherlands Project is now willing to give up on the profile, I will happily help by removing the Netherlands project box, project account, and PPP;  disconnecting the supposed family members; and adding an "Uncertain Existence" template.

Comments

Thank you Ellen for your comment. I don't use the word fraud, but I stay with wishful thinking. The reason I picked up this Symon de Groot profile is that he jumps up in my connection line with Richard Pryor. Any argument like plausibility or alike last names (de Groot and Groot are not identical) or the genealogy is all around in Ancestry, FS, MyHeritage, Geni, Genealogieonline, Geneanet and on and on should not count for WikiTree as we support the policy of sourced and proven profiles. So In case we use uncertain for a relationship, we should not connect them. In the case of Symon de Groot I think this has to be certainly not a connection instead of uncertain. We do connect, I do also connect, but hopely only sourced and proven. So this Groot family has to be disconnected from the de Groot family.

So I do support your proposal and will ask the Dutch PPP-managers to assist in this.

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"Uncertain Existence" suggests that research is still in progress.  If one really believes at the moment that this person never existed, then "Disproven Existence" status may be more important.  Profiles that are "Disproven Existence" should be managed and protected by a project -- the default being the Disproven Existence Project -- if it's likely people will be tempted to add erroneous connections!