Need assistance in confirming duplicate and merging individuals born about 1700

Question

It appears that Bürgi-11 Hans Ulrich Bürgi and Bergey-81 John Ulrich Bergey are the same person.   Both seem to match the information found in The Genealogy of the Bergey family: a record of the dscendants of john Ulrich Bergey and his wife Mary found on Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/17083/images/dvm_GenMono003151-00008-1?pId=44)

Before I initiate a merge however, I am hoping to work with a mentor because the merged individual was born about 1700 and I have seen many an older genealogy have errors in them.   First, I would like a second set of eyes on these two and then assistance as I work to mesh together the descendants so I am not making a bigger mess.  In my poking around the Berky/Berkey/Bergy/Bergey people on wikitree, I suspect there are unconnected Berkey people that can be merged with others that are already connected.  I think a "John" or two have the wrong wives, having been mixed up with a previous or later generation.

Thank you!

Cathy

Comments

Actually, I need to add Burgy-28 Hans Ulrich Burgy (1700-1762) into the mix.  I'm making a spreadsheet to keep the people straight.    Is it recommended I start at the oldest common person and then work the merges of the children, grandchildren and so on after that?

Answer 1

I would go with the Will as a source. Despite the mangled spelling of the name, it was clearly meant to be John Ulrich. I would also use the German spelling, Hans and merge the others into that.

Comments

Lois, that is what I am thinking.  The others are the 'Americanized; versions, I suspect.

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And, as Cathy mentions, probably done by descendants to tie in their own line, not necessarily the family entire, so that the children are not the same. The Will, however, is meant to account for the entire family of children.

Answer 2

Those 3 profiles have different last name at birth, so that is the critical part to determine.  Whichever is correct, the other 2 merges should be merged into that one since they all have different Last Name at Birth.

One problem is that I don't see any source on those profiles that can be verified.  Each profile has different children.

There are 2 different wives, but they may be the same person, based on the dates on those 2 profiles.  

The 4 children have a large range of dates if they have the same parents, with birth dates of 1728, 1734, 1743, and 1753

Comments

I found the Genealogy of the Bergey Family online.  That page has John Ulrich Bergey and his wife Mary listed with eleven children, 4 of which are children on those 3 profiles with matching spouses. 

That source states his wife Mary's maiden name is not certain, probably Gerhart Clemens.  

1 of the 3 PMs is still active, 1 was active in Jan and the 3rd is not active since 2017. 

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That is the Bergey genealogy I tried to link in my original post.   From what I can tell, these of these three profiles were created with the intention of being the same person.   The birth and death dates are all the same years and while not all three profiles give his last wife a name, it seems likely that the two that do decided to use the Clemens last night even though it hadn't been proven she was a daughter of Gerhart Clemens.

Even though these three profiles don't show all the same children, each of them fits with the genealogy as children of John Ulrich.  My thinking is that the profiles were added for just the children needed to extent the original poster's line.

The surname Bergey is seen as Bergy, Berkey, Berky, Burgey, etc and it's mentioned in the genealogy that different branches seemed to choose their own way of spelling it.  So while they aren't identical, I think the surnames chosen at the time the original profiles were created may have been based on whatever source that person was looking at at the time while not actually providing us with that source.   As John Ulrich Bergey is supposedly from Switzerland, I wonder if some of the names used were meant to be respectful of how the name would have been spelled at that time.

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Page 9 of Bergey Family has a section on family name which lists some of these names.  Since all of these 3 profiles have children that match the list in this book, they are probably the same. 

As far as merging it is always better to merge parents before children so that profiles are not left with no children.  You can also be looking for duplicates within the children when merges are proposed.  

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I also have a hard copy of The Berkey Book by William Albert Berkey, Arlington, Va. (2939 N. Nottingham St., Arlington 22207) : R.B. Reichley, 1995.     I can compare and see if better sources are mentioned and try to fill it out as I fix it.     I only stumbled onto it because I was trying to add in my Berky line.   I am aware there are many different spellings for the name so started finding duplicates in my searches before adding mine.     

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Thank you Linda!    I have been doing searches of the children and other descendants and have found duplicates that I'm keeping track of on my spreadsheet.    There is likely to be more as many of these older profiles have no/few dates and no/few sources.  I will likely have to look at each person and how they connect to the original poster's family to confirm who they all are.