Review my line to Charlemagne

Question

Every couple of years I figure out a new line of descent from Charlemagne, and then poke around and find a weak link or two or three and it goes away...  I've just found another line, which I've posted at the bottom of my own profile (Day-1904).  Now I'm working my way back profile by profile to see if it holds up, researching each person and adding what sourced data I can find.  Whether or not it pans out, Wikitree will get some better-sourced profiles out of it!  

My request of anyone who sees this would be to go to my profile and take a look at the line -- if you spot the presence of "garbage genealogy" at points in the line, please point it out to me and save me some work!  Or if you have thoughts or suggestions on any of the individuals on the line, let me know.  Once I've crossed the Atlantic and gone a few generations back, I'm in EuroAristo territory, so I'll need to coordinate there as well.

Thanks!

Comments

This is a good idea, Jack! I recently found my line of descent from Charlemagne (first time for me), and I'd also like to go through all the profiles along the way and improve the sourcing where I can. I may follow your lead. :)

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Since one's own profile is the first thing that pops up, putting the line of descent there makes it very accessible.  And putting in links to each person makes it much easier to zip over to any person in the line.  So technologically it's wonderful -- now all I have to do is make sure it's not genealogically garbage!

Answer 1

Anne Storer's profile is awesome.  And the line is tantalisingly good.  People are accepting it.  The crux of it seems to be whether Anne was the child of Edward's first wife or his second.

Comments

Exactly.  It's possible to squeeze Anne in as a child of the second wife, and she's generally accepted as such, but without knowing anything about the first wife other than that she died young and suddenly, you know that the major reason young women died was childbirth.

Answer 2

Great idea! Makes it so much easier to coordinate. I hope some of our EuroAristo people will take a look at your lines. Keep up the good work!

Answer 3

Jack -- thanks for bringing this up for people to check.  Unfortunately, Ann Storer's mother should be detached, and the lineage fails.  At WikiTree we closely follow the research of Douglas Richardson, and he hasn't recognized this lineage.  Of course that by itself doesn't disprove anything, but check this quote from the gen-medieval website at http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/GEN-MEDIEVAL/2006-10/1161456313 :

"Douglas Richardson recently provided us with the full transcription of widow Ann Skinner's gravestone: 'Here lyeth Mrs. Ann Skinner first Relict of James Truman Gent, afterwards of Robert Skinner, who died 3 of August 1717 aged about 75 years having lived near half the time a Widow.' If she died in August 1713, aged 75, this yields a birth-year of 1638. Bryan Godfrey noted to me that he had seen another transcription of the stone giving the age at death as 73 years. This still yields a birth-year of 1640, early enough to have been prior to the issuance of the Feb. 1641 Babington-Storer marriage license. Given that Ann (Storer) (Truman) Skinner had no daughter called 'Katherine,' and was apparently left out of the will of Humphrey Babington (despite her sister Katherine [Storer] [Bacon] Vincent's being mentioned), it seems to me that she must have been only a half-sister to Arthur Storer, born of their father's first marriage to Mary Widmerpole. As
Ann was probably raised in the household of her stepmother's second husband, William Clarke, this may explain the naming of her son 'Clarke' Skinner, without necessarily implying a blood relationship."

So... Ann's birth year should be changed to 1638, and her mother should be changed, too.

Comments

Great minds think alike. I had the quote you cited already up on the profile for Edward Storer, but had been fighting letting it govern.  But I added a paragraph where I did the math that on total time available for two daughters to be conceived between the birth of Edward Jr and the conception of Arthur.  Unless Ann and her sister Katherine were twins, the time available would require that each conception take place two months following the previous birth.  From part of my career spent in family planning and maternal and child health I know that fertility is suppressed immediately following birth and during lactation.  So that was the last nail in the coffin of Ann's Charlemagne ancestry.  About two hours ago I added a profile for Marie Widmerpole and will give her a nice write up as the mother of Ann who may well have died in childbirth.  

Meanwhile, however, that leaves Katherine Babington as a legitimate link to Charlemagne for any who can show descent from her.  Are there other holes in the line from Katherine back?

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But how does the date on the gravestone mutate from 1717 to 1713?  And was there really a sister Katherine?

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The gravestone issue is still problematic.  However any stone put in place in the second decade of the 1700's -- whether 1713 or 1717 -- has got to be pretty weathered at this point, and it's in a private cemetery on private property, not well maintained.  So I'd be impressed it one could read anything on it at this point.

The conclusion has to be based on "preponderance of evidence."  So the gravestone is one piece of evidence.  The difficulty of finding a date for her to be conceived by Katherine Babington -- assuming that a sister Katherine was also born in the same time block.  The absence of Anne in certain documents.  And the prevalence of Anne in wife Marie's family, but not in wife Katherine's family.  

All these things make me put Anne as a daughter of Marie at the moment.  But if additional facts that shift the evidence in the other direction turn up tomorrow, we can always put Anne back as a daughter of Katherine.  The technology is easy -- it's the research that's hard!

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The gravestone issue is a bit less problematic now -- went through my notes and revised the bio of Anne Storer and realized she made a will in 1713, proved in early 1714, so she died probably the end of 1713.  That makes the 1717 gravestone in error.  on the date.  And age 75 subtracted from 1713 gives you a birthdate of 1638.  What's still logically a bit tricky is if you don't trust the gravestone for a death date of 1717, why should you trust it for an age at death of 75?  So you're still dealing with "preponderance of evidence."

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Yes indeed, but your point is well taken -- in general, the age recorded on a gravestone could be a guess, an approximation, or an exaggeration.

Answer 4

Let me add this thought as an "answer" rather than just as a "comment" -- having become persuaded at the moment that Anne Storer is a daughter of Marie Widmerpole and not Katherine Babington, I am clear that there is some unfinished business.  

While the line back from Katherine Babington to Charlemagne is no longer "my" line, it is "a" line, and in building that line I identifieed profiles created by others and linked them with some new profiles I created myself to link them.  That was a rushed process to put a line together so it could be tested, but now those profiles still need to be reviewed and rationalized.  

These will not be profiles thrown together with a couple of unsourced "facts" and then abandoned.