New Magna Carta sub-project - Questionable Gateway Ancestors

+27 votes
1.7k views

The Magna Carta project has started a new sub-project called Questionable Gateway Ancestors. 

A Questionable Gateway Ancestor is any colonial immigrant with lines to royalty that currently does not appear in our sources or lists of known Gateway Ancestors.

Our goal with these is to answer the question - should this person be a Gateway Ancestor or not? We will be doing more research on them and we will be active on G2G looking for help to answer that question. When we can, we will be updating them to Gateway Ancestors or removing the incorrect connections. 

We could use your help: 

  • Researching the validity of the lines among the current list of Questionables 
  • Identifying and adding colonial immigrants with royal lines that belong in the Questionable Gateway Ancestors category
  • Initiating and participating in G2G discussions about these royal lines

We have already started to research these lines and have been reviewing groups of well researched immigrants (like Puritan Great Migration and Mayflower) to find additional quesitonable lines. For folks active in the Puritan Great Migration project, you will likely have seen the Category: Questionable Gateway Ancestors already. 

We would LOVE YOUR HELP with this effort. We have found a couple hundred Questionables already and we are not even halfway through the PGM project list. If you would like to roll up your sleeves and get involved, please let us know.   

This is a good opportunity to improve the overall quality of our tree. We appreciate your input and support as we go!

Category of Questionable Gateway Ancestors:

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Questionable_Gateway_Ancestors

Category of Gateway Ancestors:

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Gateway_Ancestors

in The Tree House by PM Eyestone G2G6 Mach 3 (36.2k points)
edited by Living Schmeeckle

A quick comment on the choice of the word "Questionable". 

On one hand, there is no doubt some additional colonial immigrants that have good sources and will (eventually) be added to the known lists. Gateway Ancestors do get added when they are confirmed by us and by authors like Douglas Richardson, etc. Groups like the medieval genealogy group on Google are also good for keeping up with discussions on new Gateways.

On the other hand, when we look at a group of profiles like PGM or Mayflower (well researched colonial immigrants) and find that there are over 10 times as many showing royal lines as what we would expect, folks have called these royal lines an epidemic of poor quality.

So, should they be "possible" (glass half-full!) or should they be "dubious" (glass half empty?). The reality is they should be questioned. For the ones that should be Gateways, let's ask the question and come forward with the proofs. For the ones that are dubious and shouldn't be in our tree, let's research them as well and clean them up.

Hope this helps.

Who wants in?   

 

I like it, and would like to help where I can.
Not so sure about "clean them up" exactly.  Fakers don't usually attach their immigrants directly to a blue-blooded gentry couple.  They attach to an obscure couple and then improve their ancestry further back, by playing games with real people.  They cross-connect different branches of families, they marry people to their grandsons, they get creative with names and dates.

All of this makes it impossible to add new correct lines to the broken lines.  And snipping off the immigrant at the port of entry only creates the illusion that the cleaning-up's been done when it hasn't really been started.

And when you compare the number of real gateways and false ones, and think that most of the false ones have falsified ancestry, big broom needed.

And it's not just a case of comparing with "sources".  A lot of these lines are authoritatively asserted in books like The Plodsbury Genealogy by Hiram J Plodsbury of Michigan, which many people have implicit faith in.  Meanwhile the English secondary sources are mostly unreliable and the primary sources are inaccessible.

Until recent times, genealogy books never cited their sources properly - you were just supposed to trust them.  So it ends up being a case of deciding who you trust.

As a first step, I went through those 25 Barons and did a Wikitree Relationship finder thing for myself ... that was kind of cool ... I'm related to like nine of them!  Well, at least Wikitree thinks I am.  I did identify the Baron that is 'related' to the PGM Jewett's ... Henry de Bohun (Bohun-7).  I'm not very good at hard core genealogy so I don't think I'm the guy to do the research to prove this link.  So, where do I go from here?  Or, is this little blurb enough?  Should I put a note on all their profiles?  So many questions!  lol

 

So many questions ... so few answers ... :(

4 Answers

+12 votes
Unsourced?

I thought of "undocumented" but that has a different connotation!

However, as "Questionable" has already been used Mayflower and Great Pilgrim Migration is may be best to keep it consistent.

I will help where I can but may have more questions than answers
by Jeanne Aloia G2G6 Mach 1 (19.0k points)
+8 votes
Peter, could you please clarify the intent of this new category?  In your 'question', you say that a gateway ancestor "is any colonial immigrant with lines to royalty that currently does not appear in our sources or lists of known Gateway Ancestors."

When I go to the category, you state that "Gateway Ancestors are the American colonists with Magna Carta ancestry..."

So are you only, in this category, trying to identify gateway ancestors with lines back to the Magna Carta barons, or are you trying to identify gateway ancestors with lines to royalty?

If it's only back to Magna Carta barons, then I think you should rephrase your question so that people understand there are a lot more gateway ancestors, i.e. those with lines back to royalty, than the ones that connect to Magna Carta.
by Darlene Athey-Hill G2G6 Pilot (530k points)
The intent is to improve our tree. We are doing that by 1) removing dubious/false connections, 2) researching possible Gateways that are not currently in our research, and 3) properly identifying Gateways who were previously unmarked. If you look at the category you will see a list after "researched profiles with updates," where you can see the profiles researched so far with their updates. There have been related g2g's on most (nearly all?) of those profiles as well.

We have been reviewing colonial immigrants who are not known Gateways (as you know, most lists don't differntiate between MCSB and royal when listing "Gateways"), looking for lines to Magna Carta surety barons. As it turns out, of the hundreds we've found so far, only one that we have researched shows a royal line without also connecting to a Magna Carta surety baron.

That one is William Carpenter-201 (and his children). We actually just discussed having Euroaristo explore his royal lines. Would you like to do so?

In the future, if we do find another ''Carpenter-201'', as rare as they are, we'd be happy to have Euroaristo explore them.

I've also updated the category page to say "Magna Carta."

We'd love more help identifying and reviewing these "Questionables" if you're interested. There are many, many more to go.

I understand #'s 1, 2 and 3 as well as why you are doing it.  It's a good thing.  The question was whether it was all gateway ancestors or only descendants of MCB.  If you are including Carpenter-201, then it seems you're including all gateway ancestors.

I have no familial connection to William Carpenter.  And unless someone wants to take over leadership of EuroAristo, I unfortunately don't have time to take on Magna Carta.  I helped with it before taking the reins of EuroAristo last year. I've got a few hundred thousand other profiles to work on  Thanks anyway!

How do you want people to go about notifying you of a potential new gateway ancestor, i.e. one that Wikitree shows as being related to royalty or a MCB that isn't yet included in either your known or questionable categories?

I feel the mountain you're climbing! smiley

One down, a million to go!

Darlene, if people find potential new gateway ancestors, they can simply add the "Questionable Gateway Ancestor" tag, and a link to the profile will automatically appear on the category page -- and it'll eventually get checked along with the hundreds of others in the queue.  As I'm the one doing the lion's share of the research on these lineages, it would be helpful to shoot me a message when you add a new one.
Perfect!  That's what I, and others, needed to know.  I already sent a note to Peter, but I've added the tag to a profile and will PM you also.  Great work, and thanks again!
Got to admit, I love that one.  Who needs William the Conqueror when they can get to Charlemagne through William the Carpenter.

No doubt rewarded with extensive lands for fixing the Conqueror's wonky chair-leg at the Battle of Hastings.

But after John snips off the immigrant, what happens to the rest of the line?  That's as far as QGA goes, so the rest of the line is still somebody else's problem, if it's anybody's.

(I know what needs to happen, though I don't see why it needs to wait for John to snip off the immigrant first)
RJ - Sorry, I saw this and meant to respond but was sidetracked.

I think John has removed quite a few connections further back in time as well, but as any of these 'questionables' often have an entire tree and not just a line, even when he removes one near the immigrant and another near the Bigods (for example), it's really just a start.

In the case where it is just a line, I think many of these do get cut at both ends and just float off on their own.

Within the Magna Carta and EuroAristo projects, I know we're constantly untangling, de-merging, disconnecting, etc., to this section of our tree.

One profile, one connection at a time!
+9 votes
I manage a profile in this category. The relationship calculator shows that there are 56 common ancestors each within 25 generations to just one of the 17 Magna Carta Barons. This means that there are, worst case, 1,400 (=56*25) connections that need to be checked. Once those are checked, and the 56 (worst case) bad connections removed, I then need to do the same for the other 16 Magna Carta Barons (with "known descendants past the fourth generation"). I am not on the Trusted List for most of these profiles, so that causes another set of problems. At the same time, I need to hope that no more 'dubious connections' are added by someone else.
 
Wouldn't it be easier to go through the descendants of the Barons, one generation at a time, and remove undocumented/unsourced descendants?
by Rick Pierpont G2G6 Pilot (127k points)
Rick -

Thanks for the note.

We are removing connections both closer to the barons and closer to Questionable Gateways.

As you point out, these Questionables have their own family trees that lead to many parts of the EuroAristo project, not just to Magna Carta surety barons. If we remove innacurate connections closer to a colonial immigrant, we just cleaned up dozens of innacurate lines.

Whether you think the one you are managing is dubious or accurate, please add sources and make the case. If you know of innacurate connections further back, please point those out as well.

Thanks
Are you are only interested in "direct descendants"? In other words, you are not interested in 14th cousins 4 x removed and other distant relatives of these Barons? That would be a more realistic goal. (The WikiTree relationship calculator is not limited in this way.)

I just assumed the parents of royalty are also royalty, but you appear to be using this category for direct descendants only.

Rick,

As you know, Americans often have difficulty in identifying who the immigrant to America, from whom they are descended, was in England or Europe before he or she emigrated. As such, many family trees become brick walls when it is time to jump the pond. Hence the strategic importance of these colonial immigrants in our overall tree. 

Regarding your quesiton on direct vs cousin, with colonial immigrants, cousins (even 14th 4x removed) means a common ancestor of theirs. In other words, you can't have a colonial immigrant who is cousins with Bigod, Quincy, Edward I, etc., who also doesn't have direct royal lines. Find a cousin and you're about to find royal lines.  

We've been making great progress, so I'm not too worried whether or not this is a "realistic goal." So far we have removed the connection for over 70 Questionable Gateways royal lines/trees and have found a couple that we're excited about that may actually become Gateways. Clearly, the vast majority (something like 97% right now) have been dubious.

You mention you manage a profile in this category. How about a challenge? I'll start looking in your tree - among your direct ancestors only - if I find less than 10 (that are either in the category, belong in the category, or have been in the category and we've already removed them), we'll add them to the category and our project will take care of digging through them. If I find more than 10, you get invovled in helping out with them going forward and acknowledge these are a problem.

Deal?

Yes. Please respond with a private message, and we can take it one step at a time.
Rick, I have your email so I'll just shoot you an email with what I have found so far.

Thanks
+9 votes

Question posted as an answer. ;-)

What about when you find a DISPROVEN gateway ancestor? I.e., let's say (for the sake of an example), that Edward Dorsey was in your Questionable category, and that-- as the profile narrative discusses-- subsequent DNA analysis determined that he could not have been descended of the Norman D'Arcy's (who for the sake of an example might have been royalty or MCBs). How would you categorize such a person after proof had been found that he's NOT a gateway ancestor? Thanks.

by Jillaine Smith G2G6 Pilot (890k points)

Interesting scenario, Jillaine. Generally, we are big fans of using  ==Disputed Origins== in the bio. Remove the connections and leave notes about the dispute and some links.

The g2gs on Questionables that we are having also leave a good 'paper trail' as they are connected to the profile. (At least until the next merge, or beyond?) 

DNA evidence in particular is one I haven't seen. I don't see why the ==Disputed Origins== process wouldn't work well. 

We are also leaving a very basic accounting within the category where we note the profile and the action taken. 

Anything else you would suggest we do? 

It seems there are three categories of results in your project:

  1. confirmed gateway ancestor: documentation confirms that this immigrant is descended of royalty/Magna Carta Barons
  2. Unconfirmed gateway ancestor: documentation has not yet been found to confirm this immigrant as a .... Descendant
  3. disproven gateway ancestor: documentation and/or DNA evidence has proven that this immigrant is NOT descended of ...

a template/category would let readers know of the status and link to the project in case they want to get involved. 

It makes me think a bit about the proposal we had some time ago to tag/template/ categorize profiles of immigrant (?) profiles of people who were subjects of fraudulent genealogies (eg, Anjou). 

Actually, there is a fourth category that seems to be the most common of all: speculative connections with no supporting evidence, which can't be disproven.

I think it makes sense to have a category for immigrants with published fraudulent ancestries (such as Angou).

Perhaps it also makes sense to have a category for questionable lineages that are in Gary Boyd Roberts'  "Royal Descents of 600 Immigrants" but not in Richardson's books -- I think that Roberts is unreliable and poorly documented, and people shouldn't assume that his word is gospel, and we're probably going to have a lot of people who want to believe what they see in Roberts' book.
Thanks, John. How is your #4 different than my #2?
Jillaine, there is a select number of well-known lineages with a single weak link -- the available pieces point to a particular lineage, but there just isn't any final proof (and may never be).  Examples of this are Henry Awbrey-3 and his brother John Awbrey-38.  These are unconfirmed gateway ancestors: two Virginia immigrant brothers whose names correspond to the names of younger sons of an impoverished aristocrat.

This is different from the many cases where a dead-end lineage (sometimes using fantasy generations) has been arbitrarily connected to an earlier aristocratic family with a similar surname.  You can't disprove it, because there's no evidence either way.  It's just a groundless speculation, and there are hundreds (if not thousands) of those out there.

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