Duplication in early Carriker family - Cabarrus County, North Carolina

Question

I have stumbled upon a cluster of duplicate profiles, I have carefully checked the facts and sources available (precious few) and formulated a plan of what I want to do to eliminate the duplication, written up the plan and shared it with the profile managers who need to agree with it.  This plan can be seen in the comments section of, for example, the profile of [[Karcher-3|Andreas Karcher (1755-bef.1813)]] which can be seen at :
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Karcher-3.
No response so far from any of the other profile managers.  I have NOT yet made proper merge requests.

Before I proceed, I thought it prudent to open up this plan for general comment.  The aforementioned Andreas Karcher is the son of the scion of a large dynasty of breeders and Andreas could well have a thousand descendants, so it is worth trying to do this right.

The original cluster has 8 profiles representing 4 real people.  While waiting around for replies from the PMs concerned, I have trolled through some of Andreas' other children and found a third profile for Andreas - [[Caraker-35|Andrew Caraker (1755-1819)]], two profiles for his son Jacob - [[Caraker-3|Jacob Caraker Sr (1796-1864)]] and [[Caraker-34|Jacob Caraker (1791-1864)]], and two profiles for Jacob's wife Phoebe - [[Verble-94|Phebene Elizabeth Verble (1806-1883)]] and [[Verble-1|Phoebe Elizabeth Verble (abt.1806-)]].

I am not necessarily looking for help (though additional sources would be nice) but rather for comments about the general plan and tips on things to look out for.  

As an example, the spelling of the family name : The family name in the original German was Kächer but this was anglicized in various ways shortly after arrival in America (remembering that all the above mentioned profiles are from the era when no one knew how to write).  Later generations of the family generally settled on the spelling "Carriker" with a few branches holding out with "Karriker".  For Andreas (three duplicates - each with its own spelling), I am thinking to retain the name Andreas Karcher.  For profile pairs with identical spellings, the last name will be left with that spelling.  For Moses, the modern spelling will be used.

As a further example, one of the 3 duplicates of Andreas has a wife named Christina Blackwelder.  The other two have his wife as Christina Bost.  There are no sources which would support ANY of the three.  I am guessing majority rules but with setting 'uncertain'.  In which case [Blackwelder-1010] would need to be merged into [Bost-24].

Thanks for any comments.

Dave

Answer 1

There were about 20 plus spellings for Karcher with an umlat above the a, which was the original spelling.  It then went to Carriger to sound more English, then in NC it went to Carriker.  From there many of the family members started going by different variations as they migrated west.  It later changed to Karriker, Caraker, Cariker, etc.  This could go in the profile for they are all related.  A Caraker who was a lawyer did a nice analysis of this and proved the various spellings as the same family.  Also, Andreas was married to a Christina Blackwelder and later a Catharine Bost.  Looking at the Blackwelder family tree they never showed Christina as married, but I do show Christina as the mother of the some of the children of Andreas.  Then also some of the family had the mother Catharine.  Howard H. Carriker wrote "Carriker Origins" in 1993 that showed extensive research.

Comments

So is a copy of "Carriker Origins" available on-line somewhere?