Is Abigail Searles,wife of William Carpenter PGM, a questionable person?

Question

An Abigail Searles -- http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Searles-21 -- born in England in 1606 and presumed wife of a William Carpenter, has a long history on WikiTree and I recently adopted her as profile manager. As I research Abigail, I'm noticing the following:  

*  No reliable documentation for the existence of an Abigail Searles

*  Carl Boyer, the source for her claimed father, Edward Sales, lists other children but not Abigail.

*  Gene Zubrinski, the top authority on Carpenters, shows William's wife as Abigail Briant, and theorizes that "Abigail Searles" is a conflation of Abigail Briant and her daughter in law, Miriam Sales, granddaughter of Edward.

So my first question is -- can anyone find any documentation for the actual existence of an Abigail Searles?  If not, I'm thinking of slapping a {{questionable}} label on her and delinking her from the family connections that only a real person can have.

Meanwhile, while William Carpenter-19 is properly shown as married to Abigail Briant, a number of his claimed children -- especially those not listed by Zubrinski -- show Abigail Searles as their mother.  Since William's profile is project protected, does anyone have any objections to my doing further research on William's family and making documented improvements to the profile including finding the correct homes for his chiildren?

Comments

Sounds good to me... Especially if you document the heck out of it, as you did above. Thanks Jack.

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I agree with Jillaine. There are just way too many undocumented wives & mothers floating around on immigrant male ancestors.

Answer 1

There is a birth record for Abigail Searle in Devon England on March 1

1604.But there are records of Abigail Searle born about same period in

other counties.My best advice to you is stop your efforts on trying to

work on this unfinished tree.There is a lot of info out there,all not proven.

Thank you for trying to finish this tree.

Comments

Wayne, you're too kind, and obviously concerned with my welfare.  To do this, however, I would have to go regularly to a meeting of anonymous people where I would begin telling my story by saying, "My name is Jack, and I am a genealogist....."

And of course, no tree is ever finished...the best we can do is come to a point where we say, "well, that's the best we can do."

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Hi  Jack

It looks like you are putting in a great effort to sort this out, and have done some extensive research on the differing William's.  Keep plugging away (as long as you can stand it!, we really appreciate your efforts.

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Hate to say it, but this is my idea of fun!  So far, I've gotten Edward Sale Sr and his daughter Abigail (born 1594) straightened out, as well as Edward Sale Jr, whose daughter Miriam married William Carpenter, Jr (Deacon William Carpenter).  That leaves Abigail Searce as a person of legend, because we know the real people who were put together to create her, and she can be delinked from real people.  With Abigail Searce sorted out, we know who the duplicate William Carpenters married, which along with Zubrinsky's solid data will enable us to correct the data on the duplicate Williams.  Once they all have the correct data, then the data in all the Willimas will be the same, and merging them with William Carpenter-19 will be the obvious thing to do!

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Way to go, Jack!!! Awesome.

Answer 2

The misidentification of this person (Abigail Searle) as a wife of William2 Carpenter (b. abt 1605 England) of Rehoboth, MA is probably the result of confusion with his son William3's second wife, Miriam Sale(s) (often found as Searle[s] in the secondary literature but rarely recorded as such). The inclusion of dubious vital-event data for her simply compounds the error. William2 Carpenter had but one wife: Abigail Briant (see Gene Zubrinsky's notes for the latter man, MARRIAGE section).

SEE: http://carpentercousins.com/carplink.htm for William Carpenter b. abt 1605)