Sopjoe Townshend is alive and well and living on the internet.

Question

There is an extensive pedigree of the Elye family with lots of believable detail for the menfolk. No wives mentioned. Anyone any idea where this comes from? What could Sopjoe have been meant to mean? No sign of her in Townshend family except on the internet. Two generations away we have a Clifford lady, cannot find anything about her, either.

Answer 1

Sophie? But couldn’t locate her on findmypast.

Comments

It does look like a bit of a typo.  H is next to J, and O is next to I on the keyboard...

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I considered that and it seems most likely. However it's very early for it's appearance in England. Main problem is there's no mention of the wives in the source for the Elye family and visitation for her supposed father John Townshend names 3 daughters and their husband's, but no Sophie or any relationship to the Elye family.

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Looks like a typo to me as well

Answer 2

I don't use G2G because of having to type in answers, instead of pasting. But this once I'm moved to do so by the continued presence of a preposterous profile. The first name is clearly an impossibility and the birthplace an obvious fake. Brampton in Cumberland is over 500 km (300 miles) by road from Brampton in Suffolk where the Townshends lived, at least five days on a good horse in good weather.

Comments

Hi Chas, long time no speak :-) I hope you are good?

Birthplace isn’t necessarily ‘fake’ this means artificial or not real. I agree that birth place is unlikely given the death place. This profile is unsourced and the name is debated as C. posted the question. And if you squirrel around the profile you’ll see C. Is trying to sort through it, being the PM for spouse and parents.

Unfortunately these things take time (my own view would say it’s hard to find contradicting sources if the info is fiction originally) Please bear with C.Mackinnon in sorting out this profile

Honestly C. Is awesome, if it can be sorted it will be :-)

Lizzie

Answer 3

Time to move on this. In all likelihood the name was meant to be Sophie. That name came into England with the Hanoverians which makes this look like a complete invention and a candidate for disproven existence. The original PM is long gone and no one has managed to find anything since then.

Comments

Go for it.

Answer 4

Thanks to a very quick response to my trusted list request, Sopjoe is all alone now. I've said all I have to say on the profile. So how do I "prove" she didn't exist?

Comments

C, thanks for doing all this work. You do not exactly need to "prove" that "Sopjoe" did not exist (that would be a tall order for any profile we attempt to classify as fraudulent), but there are a few steps to follow and then the profile can be adopted by the Disproven Existence project and have the project box on it. The steps are:

1.  substantial evidence that the person did not exist (you have this)
2. buy-in from profile managers/descendants (e.g., G2G discussion), (you're the manager and there was no objection in this thread)
3. project approval (both the Disproven Existence project and projects relevant to the profile), and
4. no "real" profiles attached.

You can already but the {{Disproven Existence}} research box on the profile. You only need to get "official" project approval, for this post a G2G thread titled "Disproven Existence Notice" with the same tags as this one and explaining that you think "Sopjoe" did not exist, for reasons explained in the profile bio. We'll give it one week then the profile will be moved.

See here: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Disproven_Existence 

(That project space is a work in progress, I'm currently working on it).