PLEASE REMOVE KENT AS BIRTH PLACE

Question

Please remove Kent as as Birthplace.  Nothing to support it. 

These are the sources I am using:

Should I contact one of the pre-1700 projects or know about any style guidelines before proceeding? Thank you!

Answer 1

the information you posted is not seen, possibly you used some form of wiki code.

Answer 2

Hi Tom, great question!

If you find information on a profile that isn't accurate, the best place to bring it to the attention of the profile manger(s), descendants, and other collaborators is to post a comment on the profile comment section.  You might ask the other profile watchers if someone has a source - maybe they just haven't gotten around to posting it yet.

If after some time no one supplies a supporting source, you may consider marking the Kent birthplace as uncertain and allow some further time for research.

Answer 3

This is the problem with inadequate sourcing.

I see a phrase in the bio: "Gloucester County, now called Kent", but no source for it, no way to know what was meant. But it could have been the source of an error leading to an erroneous birthplace of Kent, England.

Comments

I saw that too & scratched my head. Virginia never had a Kent County (assuming "County" was meant). There wasn't ever a Kent Parish or a Gloucester Parish either (see [this page]).

Gloucester County, Virginia was formed from York County in 1651; New Kent County was formed from York County in 1654. (See County Formation Maps.)

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found it. It was a misquote from Cavaliers & Pioneers. I fixed the quote & added a footnote.

https://archive.org/stream/cavalierspioneer00nuge#page/309/mode/1up

Answer 4

Also, contact the leaders of the [https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:US_Southern_Colonies_Colony_of_Virginia_Team Virginia project] and  [https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Project:England England project].

Answer 5

The profile had links to a FindAGrave memorial, which shows birth in Kent, England but no source. The FindAGrave memorial also had a screen shot from an unidentified online tree with a different birth location (also no source). I posted a comment to the profile with that info & removed "Kent" from the datafield.

Comments

if the screenshot is from geni, it's an older version. The WikiTree profile has a link to https://www.geni.com/people/Col-Thomas-Ballard-Speaker-House-of-Burgesses/6000000002665496341 ... which includes some interesting reading!

Answer 6

We have zillions of wrong birthplaces.  No wonder, if it takes all this to remove one.

It's not like it's disputed.  You need an argument on each side to make a dispute.  If it's unsourced, unexplained and improbable, there isn't one.  It should just go.

Comments

Quite true, RJ, but the first step in showing that something is wrong is showing what's correct.

The OP could have simply edited the profile in a few seconds instead of posting here and demanding someone else do it. If you demand a change, you should be able to say why.

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Sorry but I disagree. It is perfectly possible to know that something is wrong or at least highly improbable without knowing what is correct. This post stems, I believe, from my comment concerning the birthplace & my comment elucidates that there are many possible lineages from which Thomas may have descended & some of the English counties in which those lineages were seated. That is based upon 40 years of research & the detailed research of many of those medieval lines from primary sources. So whilst I do not know where Thomas was born I can say that Kent is only one of maybe 12 possible counties & without more substantive evidence should be removed.

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But then what is correct is that the birthplace can not be known with any certainty. And this can be shown with evidence.

As opposed to - this fact-claim is unsourced, so remove it.

If an unsourced claim is made, one has to wonder - was it just because someone was too lazy to post the source, or because the claim is incorrect? In the first case, the answer is to find and post the source, in the second, to remove the false or unproved claim.