PGM Leader remove parents from Horatio Gates Somerby Fraud.

+7 votes
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The parents shown on this project protected profile:

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Browne-418

Are based on the Horatio Gates Somerby Fraud.Please remove them and replace them with the correct parents from the most recent research published by NEHGS in 1996:

The Ancestry of Eva Belle Kempton, Part I, the Ancestry of Warren Francis Kempton 1817-1879 by Dean Crawford Smith (Boston, Mass.: NEHGS, 1996), pp. 168-196.

 

The correct parents can be seen on:

https://www.geni.com/people/Abraham-Browne/6000000006444996495

http://www.werelate.org/wiki/Person:Abraham_Browne_%281%29

Or by checking out the Kempton book:

https://archive.org/stream/ancestryofevabel01smit#page/180/mode/1up

He was son of Edmund2 Browne (William1), born say 1547, buried at Sawbridgeworth 21 January 1638/9 (at age 95), who married there 23 July 1584 Mary Cramphorne, baptized there 27 September 1562, living 1607, daughter of William and Jone (Plowe) Cramphorne.

WikiTree profile: Abraham Browne
in Genealogy Help by Living Baker G2G6 Mach 4 (42.8k points)
edited by Ellen Smith
What are the IDs for the profiles of the correct parents? I don't see them linked from this profile.
If you want these people to be connected to Browne-218 as his parents, it would be a good idea for you to create the profiles, including the sources and appropriate discussions of erroneous or fraudulent genealogical work that has affected this family's genealogy.

I assume you mean Browne-418. I already did yesterday before I posted this G2G thread. There are several paragraphs discussing the objections to the origins as published by Bond. This includes the criticism by Anderson in 1995 and the newly published origins published in 1996 by NEHGS. 

Yes, I meant Browne-418. Thanks for figuring that out.

And I believe you revised your "The correct parents are here" message after I replied to whatever the message originally said.

UPDATED: In fact, your original reply said (in part): "They don't currently exist on Wikitree." No thanks for making my reply look foolish.
Ellen I just don't understand this nastiness you always have toward me. I am trying to make a simple change to correct a project protected profile. I can't do this without a leader. I have done what needs to be done to document the reason for the change. And I have posted the request on G2G with the correct keywords per the PGM guidelines. Nowhere on the PGM guidelines does it say that I should find or create the correct parents.

I have done so much work for PGM over the last year but you still make me feel like a criminal. I just don't even want to be here anymore. I'm seriously contemplating quitting.
Vic Watt and Anne B please take my PGM badge away. I no longer feel like I can get any work done in PGM. As far as I can tell Jillaine Smith seems to be the only person of authority that seems to care about the project anymore. I'll work on another project instead.
I'm sorry that you feel I'm out to get you, Roland. I came to this thread last evening eager to participate in helping to clear out some bad genealogy. I read through the profile text looking for links to the correct parents, but didn't find them. Since it's tough to replace parents if you don't know which profiles you are being asked to replace them with, I posted the query, then went to bed not long thereafter. When I awoke this morning, my email included a notification of your "They don't currently exist on Wikitree" reply. It wasn't until a few hours later that I logged in to G2G and I added my suggestion that you provide profiles for the parents -- and my comment about sources and discussion was meant to refer to the new profiles for the parents. You could have replied by saying "I discovered existing profiles for the parents and here they are" (that kind of thing happens all the time), but instead you chose to make it appear that my comment to you had been nonsensical.
And please don't quit PGM. You have been a very valuable contributor toward the shared goal of expunging bad genealogy and adding good content about this cohort of early New England settlers.
It's been over a month and no one has done anything about correcting these parents.  Anderson was clear about who Abraham's parents were and Browne-2064 have the correct parents as well as a biographical explanation.  We now have another proposed family merge yet this still isn't fixed.  Evidently the project manager isn't following this so can someone else remove the parents from Browne-418?  I'm willing to work on this but we need someone who is PPP to fix this.  A month is a long time to wait.

Has everything been done that needs to get done for this/these profiles?  I finally got access to The Ancestry of Eva Bell Kempton, so I can  check and work on things, if necessary.

I posted this request on Jul 6 2016 with key words “PGM” and “leader” per our agreed upon PGM protocol citing my sources and the changes that needed to be made. Not to mention that I already owned physical copies of Kempton Ancestry so there was no need to try to get a copy…  And only now the leader of PGM is showing up? That’s over nine months late and nine months after I quit the project. Do you see now why I quit? The leaders of this project and the leadership structure are the problem. PGM isn’t helping to improve PGM profiles it is making sure that errors never, ever get corrected. There are edit requests on profiles managed by PGM leaders on wikitree that have had edit and merge requests pending for over two years based on high quality sources that will never get done. I used to be one of the most active members on the wikitree PGM project before I quit last July. I invest substantial amount of money on sources for example I own every issue of The Genealogist, every issue of the American Genealogist, etc. and I can go down the list. You name it I probably own in. And my library used to be of great benefit to this site. And yet due to the poor leadership structure on the PGM project I could get nothing done.  This is why I like this project just a little bit.

Roland, Sorry you are disappointed.  I didn't see any reason to chime in when I didn't have the resources to make any contribution, and others, who are very knowledgeable, had already answered.  I requested the book, and I just gained access to it today. From your answer, I gather that there is no need, now, to check anything in Eve Belle Kempton.

Thanks for trying Vic :)

Thankfully Jillaine Smith fixed the issue by breaking PGM rules. So I will follow her example. Thanks Jillaine. You have shown me the way. 

I'll tell you what Vic - let's test your determination - two years of editing and five months of a merge requests and parent change requests on a profile managed by a PGM "leader" Chris Hoyt and no go! Let's see you fix this one. The source is Kempton Anc - and you claim to finally have a copy, right? Kind of hard to believe as leader of the PGM project that you didn't own it all along since it is co-authored by the very same person who co-authored The Great Migration. But who am I to judge? Let’s get ‘er done Vic, right? This should be easy since you have the book in your hand? What Robert Charles Anderson and Melinde Lutz Sanborn say supersedes all previous studies? Kempton Ancestry part IV pages 114-195? You go! Show me you really mean it’ll be different this time.

Or should I just be "disappointed." Do you have something to "contribute" as leader?

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Clapp-29
Hi Roland, clearly you are frustrated but taking it out publicly on Vic who was just trying to be helpful isn't the solution. However frustrated you are, courtesy is still required. If you can't post respectfully, please step away until you can.  Thanks.
Just ban me please and delete all my contributions if you feel it is necessary to improve Wikitree. But my contributions go with me.
It is unfortunate that the leadership of this project is unable to accept constructive criticism. I’m sorry if it hurts guys but this project is a failure and I am not the first to point this out. Silencing the criticism is not going to make the problems go away.
Hi Roland, I see your point and I agree that constructive criticism is needed to help things improve.  But can you see that your recent posts to Vic aren't constructive or really about the project? There are better ways to go about getting heard.  I'll message you privately and we can see what you want to regarding your account.
Eowyn I'll take the rest of the night off out of respect of the management. But the PGM project has serous issues that need to be deal with. Keeping the issues out of the public eye isn't going to benefit anyone. And all the issue brought up here have been brought up numerous times before.

Roland, Unfortunately, I don't have the money to buy every book that interests me or would be helpful in my research, so I rely on libraries and the internet. Back when you asked the question in July, I reserved a copy of Vol. 1 of Eva Bell Kempton on InternetArchive.org.  It is a very popular work, and I just received access to it today.  I just checked on Vol. 4, which you just referenced, and it is currently checked out and not available. I can put a hold on it, but I have no idea when I will get access.  (If I am 1st in line, it could take 0-3 weeks, but if I'm 6th, it could take up to 4-1/2 months.)

You didn't mention a particular profile, just page numbers in Vol. 4.  If you want me to help, you will have to tell me at least the name of the profile or the profile number.

See URL above - I have dozens more... And I own the books so you don't need to check them out. Silicon Valley money is good and I don't apologize for that. It funds a good library.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Clapp-29
Eowyn do you really want to be responsible for spreading all this bad genealogy on Wikitree or can we get together and just clean this all up. It could be done in just a couple of years. Come on.

My solution - many PGM leaders. Yes, we need a lot – let’s get Jillaine back and let's put Jeanie on there. To handle the flow we need about 20 good quality leaders on this project. Otherwise nothing is going to get done and this thing is going down the garbage shoot fast. The bad genealogy is spreading all over the internet fast. Wikitree is going to be synonymous with bad genealogy. PGM is not that hard it has almost all been well documented. Vic – all due respect you should stay on but you can’t do this by yourself!!! You’ve proven that. Possibly an inner circle and out circle in PGM but a single leader is not working. We cannot have a single point of failure in PGM.
I happen to know some of you are not strangers to concepts of high tech. Let’s say you invent a high through-put channel for data. But you need something faster. What do you do if you can’t make it go faster? You implement parallel channels, correct? Think SCSI, etc. right? This project is huge!!! It can’t be done by four or five leaders. You need at least 20 or 30 on here. The goal should be as stated – I mean basically we want Anderson and Sanborn or better agreed? So let’s do that! Let’s get 20 or 30 PGM leaders to knock this out! We can do this as a team or we can just give up.

I've been banned by Eowyn for speaking these words without due respect to my request that my contributions here be deleted. Eowyn needs to comply with my wishes and delete my contributions. Please see my profile for my copyright notice. 

Whoa, hey now, let's be accurate :)

No one has banned you from anything. Your account isn't even blocked. I did send you an email to see what you wanted to do with your account since you asked for it to be banned/closed but we haven't taken any sort of action yet.  If you sincerely want your account closed, just reply to the email I sent or email info@wikitree.com and ask for it to be closed and we'll take care of it.  

But please don't go around saying I banned you because that is not correct.

Thanks!

I rec'd this from you:

"I appreciate that. I'd hate to see you close your account but I can understand if that's the direction you want to go."

That looked like a ban to me and it didn't seem like you were very receptive to the constructive criticism being offered on this thread frankly. 

Personally I'd rather find a solution. Not a solution to my personal predicament, I’m happy to go with my contributions, but a solution to why in cases like this were a well-known fraud can't be resolved! I mean really? The only way it got resolved, Eowyn, was by breaking the rules. Think about that for a minute. To fix a well know fraud someone here had to break your rules… Review this thread and the profiles in question if you don’t believe me and then get back with me about that. Because the evidence here is that is exactly what happened and it is a good thing that it happened in my humble opinion.  

If you seriously want to have a constructive conversation about this and solve the PGM issue let's do it. But right now the PGM project is an abject failure. All we are doing is preserving fraud and error. No constructive changes can be made on Wikitree and there are tens of thousands of changes that need to be made. Wikitee is generating errors at an exponential rate and fixing them at a linear rate. Can you math-heads not see a problem with this??? Exponential vs. linear? Is this ringing a bell? Which will win in your opinion? There is only one answer to that question. Is Wikitree going to be the solution or the problem? And I’m speaking specifically about PGM where it is so easy to get it right. There is no reason to get this so wrong in the PGM period. It is the most vetted period in New England history, right?

Sources? Really we are holding merges up for years because we can’t access sources? Get 20-30 high quality leaders in PGM and I bet there is not a single source we don’t already own between us. I personally own a huge library of sources. Why the heck are we waiting to access a book by Melinde Lutz Sanborn who wrote the Great Migration series in the PGM project? Can you look at me in the eye and answer that? Because I have her books right here.  

You know I’m actually a really nice guy and I’m sorry it has come to this. But seriously guys – this isn’t that hard… 

I hate to debate the point but I'm not sure how you see that as a ban. That was in response to you asking (see above) to have your account banned (your word) and your contributions removed. Also, I'm receptive to criticism, but I'm not on board when you go personally after another member. That's not how we do things on WikiTree and I know you know that. The same goes for comments you've been leaving on a profile.

If you want a constructive conversation about the PGM project then my suggestion is that you start a new thread in the G2G with the pgm tag and ask who wants to be involved and post any suggestions you might have to move the project forward.

Maybe instead of going off like you have in this thread (which is not constructive) you could have approached the project and asked to be a project coordinator because you clearly have interest and expertise in the area. Maybe you could have made a difference that way.

You're frustrated by this and I'm suggesting again that you step away for a bit, calm down and then please, by all means, try to get conversations going to help the PGM project improve.  WikiTree is all about finding ways to get better and move forward. Onward and upward.

This conversation though is not constructive and this is the last time I'll post here.
Seems like there are some radically different notions floating around about the role of a project leader and the function of project protection.

As I see it, nobody is preventing me from editing a project-protected profile as long as I'm communicating about my edits and citing sound sources (and citing sources is a form of communication). If I determine that there is an error in a project-protected profile that I cannot correct (for example, a bad LNAB), I can clearly document the situation in the text of the profile, including citations to sources and a discussion of the content I found in the sources that provides evidence for my conclusion, then ask a project leader to make whatever change I couldn't make. If the situation is complicated or potentially controversial, I should open a G2G discussion before making extensive edits, because other members might have different information or interpretations -- and we are smarter together than we are by ourselves. The role of the project leader is to facilitate and support the collective work of all project members by mechanisms such as judicious use of project protection, explaining policy, connecting contributors to useful resources (such as other members with common interests), monitoring activity in the project to make sure that things are progressing appropriately, and sometimes arbitrating disputes.

I hope that a project leader would be knowledgable about the project's subject matter and would have access to relevant resources, and I might ask a project leader for research help.  However,, I would never tell a project leader "I found errors in this profile; since it's  project-protected, it's your job to identify the errors and fix them." I may be wrong, but I get the impression that some among us feel that's what a leader should do.
Ellen you are completely misunderstanding my point. Maybe Eowyn is correct and we need to start a new thread about this. However, I’ve stated clearly what I think is wrong with the PGM project many times and I don’t want to close this thread with a misinterpretation of what I am trying to say. So I’m going to close with my constructive criticism of the PGM project since I started this thread.

First let me state what my criticism is not about. It is not about editing text or adding sources. It is not about the knowledge of the leaders. It is not about the sources that the leaders have.  

I am talking about relationship edits and merges.

Let’s drill down to the point. We have 20,000 people who immigrated to New England between 1620 and 1640. That figure comes from page three of Robert Charles Anderson’s Winthrop Fleet (2012). So we start with 20,000 profiles in PGM. We add in their parents and we add in their fictitious parents (which is more often the case) and then we add in their children and second and third spouses. So let’s estimate that there are roughly 200,000 profiles that we control in PGM. Are you with me so far?

No one inside or outside of PGM can remove or change parents or spouses or children without first posted to G2G and discussing it and getting approval from the PGM leader. And that brings up a bigger issue we have multiple copies of the same person on Wikitree that need to be merged. And the administrators refuse to merge the duplicate profiles if one of the two profiles has different parents, the wrong spouse or the wrong child attached. So merges have come to a standstill.

When I was active in PGM up until July 2016 I was posting a removal request or a change of parents or change of spouse request about once a week.  So that’s a max of 52 profiles per year. At that rate if I had all of these requests approved I could “fix” 52 relationships per year.

What is the scope of the problem? We have parents on about 90% of the PGM profiles on Wikitree. According to Robert Charles Anderson’s Great Migration Newsletter only 15% of the origins of great migration immigrants are known. That means we need to remove 0.75*20,000 x 2 parents per profile = 30,000 parents. Until we do we can’t merge the profiles. And of the remaining 5,000 PGM profiles that have known parents many of them are wrong. So let’s call that about 35,000 parents that need to either be removed or changed. At a pace of 52 relationships per year I can get that job done in 673 years. If we have five or six people on the project doing that full time we could get it done just over a century. But that’s not even happening. Why? Because whenever a proposal is made to make these edits the leader Vic doesn’t give approval on the G2G discussion –or- even after citing all the necessary sources Chris Hoyt or Ellen Smith says the profile still has issues and needs to be perfected first. I don’t understand that logic. In any case the relationship edits don’t get done and the merges don’t get done as a consequence.

Now that’s not the end of the problem. We have children – lots of extra children who shouldn’t be attached to PGM profiles because there is no evidence for them. So we need to remove these children. Part of why we need to remove them is because managers refuse to merge duplicate profiles if one of the profiles has a child attached that shouldn’t be there. For example, before I quit PGM I brought up a case of a merge request that had been stalled for over a year. The reason the request was stalled was because one of the profiles had children attached that didn’t belong. So let’s remove those children and merge them. So I presented everything published about the family on G2G and showed that not a single source ever included those children. But Ellen Smith and Chris Hoyt refused to remove the children and now over two years the merge is still not complete. Why? because they objected that the children must have come from somewhere. No one can prove a negative. I can’t prove to anyone that children who never existed really never existed. All I can do is present the most recent research and the best evidence for the children that do exist and the rest should be detached. We shouldn’t bog down merges for years arguing that children must have come from somewhere. And case after case like this goes on and the merges never get completed and relationship edits don’t get done.

Give the number of parent relationships that need to change and the number of child relationships that need to change and the number of spouse relationships that need to change we can reasonably take the 35,000 number and see we probably have at minimum 50,000 relationships that need to be changed. And it would be great if I could change 52 a year simply by posting to G2G but the fact is even if I present the sources and make the request the leader of PGM i.e. Vic Watt, Ellen Smith and Chris Hoyt just don’t approve the edit probably over 50% of the time. So at most I can get 20 done per year. So it’ll take hundreds of years to get this done the way PGM is designed.

If that isn’t the definition of “broke” I don’t know what is. Simply put the project is designed in such a way as to prevent it from achieving its goal.

So let’s be clear. I am referring to relationship edits and merges. I am not talking about editing text and adding sources to profiles. That is a completely separate topic. It only enters into it because some PGM leaders seem to believe that the profile text and the sources have to be perfect before a relationship edit can be done. I disagree with that as well.

The problem: Relationship Edits and merges of duplicate profiles are not getting done.

Solutions?

We need many i.e. 30 leaders in PGM to approve and make relationship edits and merges.  

We need to stop thinking that profile text and sources need to be perfect before relationship edits and merges can be done.

We need to just forget about getting leadership approval for relationship edits and merges done by members of the PGM project. What is the point of waiting for an approval that isn’t going to be granted? If the PGM member has the latest sources then just make the edit and move on.

Take this thread for example – all I wanted to do is remove wrong parents. I cited the latest high quality source and no further discussion needed to me made because it was a well-known fraud. But it could not get done. The only reason it did get done is because Jillaine Smith broke the rules after a month and did it herself. Now that’s no way to run a project of this volume. So I quit PGM. Not because of this thread or specifically anything Ellen Smith said but because it was clear to me the PGM was broken by design and I was accomplishing nothing.  

I also don’t see any reason to wait seven months for the leader to borrow the source cited to check my homework. I have the hard copy of the source. I stated what it said. That should be good enough. Very few people will have all the sources to cover every edit. Nor can we expect a single leader or even many leaders to have special knowledge about all of 50,000 relationship edits that need to be made. So we need to do something and that is called “trust.” We trust other member in the PGM project to do their own due diligence. If they are in doubt sure – ask for help first. But if not as in this case just make the edit and move on.

The point is the current design of PGM is derailing relationships edits and profile merges. That’s why I am stating the in my opinion the PGM project as currently structured is hindering the correction of proper relationships and mergers and not helping them.
Roland, I agree with you and have the same feelings about WT.  That's why I have pulled back from most work I was involved with here.  Too much stress for me after 74 years and many years of genealogy work.  If no PM is going to correct it and the contributions I do make get rebutted then I can see no benefit to continue working on WT since the errors are compounding themselves.
David the feedback I get in personal combinations from other PGM editors is usually to just not follow PGM rules, don't post to G2G and go ahead and just make the relationship edits I want. Just trust my sources (because I know they are solid). Others have just left wikitree and gone to GENI or werelate. I work with a lot of them over on GENI and everyone there just appreciates good research and we just get PGM merges and relationship edits done with ease. Why? Because we trust each other. One of my PGM editing partners over on GENI actually changed her user name to “disconnectrix” because we are removing unproven PGM parents all day long and locking on “no name” parents. It’s a lot of fun. Others like Jeanie just don’t try to get mergers and relationship edits done on PGM profiles on WIkitree and focus instead on just editing the biographies, adding sources and disputing wrong relationships in the text. I guess they are all good solutions. It certainly isn’t worth battling about. It isn’t healthy and it’s not a lot of fun. And like you say – what is the point if you can’t get the results you set out to achieve?

I don’t argue with the leaders of PGM because I think they are bad people. Indeed I think they do excellent work. I really do. But they have a death grip over the project such that merges and relationship edits are futile (unless you break the rules). And they will absolutely not budge on this. So we end up with thousands of duplicates and wrong relationships that cannot ever get fixed. And that just demotivates me (and a lot of others) from contributing because whatever the fine print says in the biography text visitors look at the relationships in the tree first and if those are wrong – that’s what they take with them and that’s what gets copied all over the Internet. And I don’t want to be responsible for that. You possibly share the same sentiment.
This is a WT-wide issue and needs new ideas from the top. As I am led to understand, anyone can post an incorrect relationship, and it will stay until someone can disprove it. Which is total nonsense - how does one disprove a fiction?

On NNS project, I encountered a fictitious parental relationship. I informed the Project lead and was told that it would stand until disproved. Apparently having ridiculous date mismatches raised no eyebrows. Apparently, having authorities labeling it as a hoax raised no eyebrows, History has likely been modified forever, thanks to incompetent WT policies.

When I enquired of the cause of resistance in this case, I was told that project had done a scan of corresponding ancestry 'profiles', and this was the fiction flavor of the day,

Perhaps we need a jury on WT to 'hear' contested relationships and make rulings. The jury should be impartial (no blood line members get to sit, which removes the roadblocks that arise when one's fictitious connection to Charlemagne gets blown up. Come to think of it, no members of ancestry should get to sit either.)

Right now all I could do in this case is to discuss two candidate parentages in the profile. The information is there, languishing. Neither ancestor candidate approaches certainty, so the likely only correct answer is 'ancestry unknown'.

Why so many WTers cannot stomach this simple answer suggests WT should have a psychologist on duty 24/7, to help members deal with the uncertainty in their lives.

Cheers, and fight on.
Thank you! Weldon that is classic. I couldn't have said it better myself. You sir are welcome to amputate my tree any day of the week! We need a lesson in the basic principles of the scientific method. You can't prove a negative. No one should ever ask you to do that. No relationship connection should exist on WT unless it can be defended with evidence. The burden of proof is always on the person who argues to keep the connection. And the evidence should be based on the latest peer reviewed sources and primary sources from the period in question. No more "Personal knowledge of Joe Blow." What is that? Joe Blow is actually 400 years old and was there the day the Mayflower came over??? No more links to unsourced pedigrees. As I said above only 15% of the origins of Great Migration Ancestors are known. And of those 15% only some have known parents. We would be better off with a clean slate and disconnect all the Great Migration parents and only add them back under burden of proof. I'd rather have ancestors that I know belong to me and not borrow them from some unrelated family. To do otherwise is poor sportsmanship. Thanks for your common sense remarks.

I'm surprized that the New Netherland Settlers project is being brought into this but would like to point out that the reason that the incorrect relationship in question is being preserved is because a small, vocal minority would like her to replaced with a Chrerokee Mohican Princess, of whom I've not seen proof.

There is a solution to that - add two "No Name" parents and lock then to the profile using project protection so no one can add any other parents.
Carrie, I believe my lobbying for 'ancestor unknown' excludes me from the group of 'crazies' you refer to. And I will put my proof against yours, if you can produce it. but from what I have seen, neither rises to a sufficient level to make an ancestry claim. Your maintained relationship is based solely on patronymics, of which there were at least 3 matching in Beverwijck and many more from the homeland.

I am sorry we are getting into a personal tiff, because you are a respected senior member of the team. Bringing NNS into this fray is purely incidental, because in my few months on WT, this is the only situation I have encountered that makes me question basic WT rules. I assure you my comments are not personal and apologize for any affront I may have given.

Sheesh! Personal attacks like these are the kind of aggravation that drives people away from website collaborations.

Since I'm now being attacked for misfeasance in the role of a PGM project leader, I feel it necessary to point out that I'm not a member of PGM project leadership. I got involved with this discussion way back when because I wanted to help resolve a problem -- and because I have a Coordinator badge from another project, I do have the ability to change parents on PPP profiles. But I won't do that sort of thing (PPP or no PPP) without trying to be sure I know what I'm doing and why -- because I have made plenty of mistakes (haven't we all?), because I've seen other people make mistakes, and because I know that people whose cherished ancestors get disconnected from their ancestry will demand a good explanation of the reasons for their removal. 

I came to this discussion because of the name Horatio Gates Somerby. I created Category:Horatio Gates Somerby Fraud, and I was eager for new content about his fraudulent work. Unfortunately, the question didn't satisfy my desire for new information -- and although I initially wanted to do another WikiTreer a favor, if I could,  I couldn't even determine what was being requested. The profile text didn't identify the correct parents, and it didn't discuss the fraud/errors in the person's genealogy. The  question told me that I could get the needed information from that elusive Eva Belle Kempton book, a geni profile where I could only see part of the family group sheet (I can see a lot more there today; I guess something changed), and a werelate page that has some good content (at least today) but doesn't discuss/explain the fraud that apparently has led people to attach false parents to this person. Not enough there to help me explain why the parents were being replaced. And when I asked "What are the IDs for the profiles of the correct parents? I don't see them linked...", the response was mostly personal insults. Sorry, but I don't bend over backwards to do favors for people who treat me that way. I know of plenty of other bad profiles where I could give my tine and attention. And there's plenty of truth to the adage that you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.

3 Answers

+10 votes
 
Best answer

Starting a fresh answer for a number of reasons... ;-)

1. I, Jillaine, didn't break any rules, did not go around PGM leadership. I am a PGM project coordinator (not leader) and therefore I have sufficient access to add/detach parents from PPP'ed profiles.  Any project coordinator does.

2. I want to make sure that we give Chris Hoyt and Vic Watt a WHOLE LOT OF LATITUDE and APPRECIATION. About two years ago, I stepped down from being a volunteer Leader; that resignation also required resigning as co-leader of PGM. I asked Chris and Vic to step up to the plate, since I was stepping away, and they did. I don't think they really wanted to. And I remain appreciative of their willingness to take PGM on.

It may be true that PGM lacks sufficient NUMBER of "leadership" hours, but neither Chris nor Vic (or Ellen, for that matter, who has done a great deal for PGM) deserve any criticism. If you want to criticize someone, criticize me for not finding more people (or more available people) willing to step up to the plate at the time. It wasn't a pretty time for me, or for my wikitree Leader peers.

Does PGM need some proactive involvement at Leader-ship level? Definitely looks like it. But in no way should we criticize the current PGM Leaders. 

And dear God, how are we going to find anyone to take on such leadership in the face of such criticism? I'd love to enroll both Ellen Smith and Jeanie Thornton (and Anne B) into greater roles on the project. And if I were Chris and Vic, I might just say screw you all, I'm outta here. Then the project would really be screwed.

Again, Roland, I have so appreciated the quality of work you've done. And I'd love to see you involved in leadership/coordination of PGM-- especially now that I know about your extensive library. (The Genealogist?? I'm green with envy...)  But the attitude needs adjusting. The complaining needs turning into productive problem-solving / solution-finding.

3. I can't take on PGM Leadership. First off, I think I burned a key bridge, and wouldn't be invited back into the Leader community any time soon or ever. Also, I have a pretty busy work life outside of wikitree-- I travel a lot, and I'm otherwise focused on that work. My current involvement with wikitree typically happens in off hours. I'm great at targeted pieces of work, but I cannot take on the pro-active leadership that the project needs. 

And my sense is that the current project leaders can't either. They need our help, not our criticism.

With great respect for all the ALL of the volunteers do, 

Jillaine

 

by Jillaine Smith G2G6 Pilot (906k points)
selected by Kay Wilson
Excellent, Jillaine, thank you.

“Attitude”

I base my “attitude” on the evidence. What do you base your attitude on? My attitude is that the PGM leadership will not serve their rolls by disconnecting wrong relationships and merging profiles based on the latest peer-reviewed evidence available. This thread is a prime example. Just look at the evidence on this profile linked above in this very same thread:

 

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Clapp-29

 

It is managed by Christine  Hoyt who is a PGM leader.  She has been editing the profile since 14 Dec 2015 (see change log) and she has had a merge request for five months and a request to change the wrong parents and sources have been presented to her. Yet she refuses to disconnect the wrong parents and to merge the duplicate profile. She has contempt for PGM members and will not accept their edit or merge request. And this issue was presented on this thread before Vic Watt and before you Jillaine Smith the other two PGM leaders and yet you refuse to do anything about it. Instead you stomp your feet and speak of my “attitude” because I criticized the leadership of PGM. While silencing critics by saying they have an attitude problem works in a totalitarian regime but it doesn’t float in an open society. JFK was fond of saying our leaders should not fear criticism. It isn’t about saving face. It is about getting the job done. I would posit based on your “screw you all” comment that you don’t fall into the JFK camp. And based on the evidence of Clapp-29 my attitude is exactly correct. And I can cite a hundred more examples like it. So I will change my attitude once you show me evidence that the leadership of PGM will change incorrect relationships and merge profiles based on evidence. But that is something they are clearly not interested in doing. That is why I quit last July. There is no point in participating in a project run by folks bent on obstructing relationship edits and merges.

 

Meanwhile, I am engaged in evidence based genealogy and scholarship over at GENI where the leadership will edit relationships and merge profiles based on high quality research. I am currently working with the unpublished manuscripts of the first secretary and historian of the Marblehead Historical Society that include never seen before documents and valuable evidence that was graciously entrusted to me because of the quality of my work. And we are also deploying The Ancestry of Eva Belle Kempton books on GENI to clean up the Clapp family including Thomas Clapp (see above) which will never get cleaned up here on Wikitree because of the PGM leadership problem. If the problem were mine Jillaine then why am I having so much success with GENI’s leadership but none with the PGM leadership here? For the answer to that look again at Clapp-29 – look at the evidence. The evidence does not support your claim.

 

What I see you engaging in is grandstanding and rhetoric. No matter how much you request it I will not change my attitude as long as the leadership continues to obstruct relationship edits and merges based on evidence based genealogy. I think everyone in the PGM project sees right through your rhetoric and based on the feedback I’m getting from PGM members via email the last few days they are going to proceed to make changes bypassing the leadership because the leadership is broken. You are leaders in title only. 

Clearly the PGM leadership is correct and Thomas1 Clapp was son of Richard Clapp. Now I see why after two years of editing and five months of requesting his father be changed to Nicholas Clapp that Christine Hoyt who is a PGM leader has refused these requests.</sarcasm off>

<evidence on>

See top of this page:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Clapp-29

Thomas Clapp represented by this profile was son of Nicholas Clapp.

 

From page 88-91 of Joseph Neal Ancestry published 1945 by Walter Goodwin Davis:

 

“The will of Nicholas Clapp of Venotry in the County of Devon was made on his death-bed March 12, 1681, and proved on March 29, 1681. He gave to the poor people of the parish of Sidbury 10s. and to the poor of Venotry 3s. 4d. To Jane Clapp, Thomas Clapp, Barbara Clapp, Radagond Clapp, John and Ambrose Clapp, his children, fourscore pounds each from the profits of his lands and tenements in Venotry, to be paid at the rate of nineteen pounds a year. If any child died before time of payment, his share to be equally divided amongst the others. He made arrangements for prepayment if any of the four youngest children "shall be willing to putt themselves to any arte or trade. To Elizabeth, his wife, a feather-bed performed (i.e. furnished), six pewter dishes, potts and a middle pan of brass, a chest, two coffers and the use of other household stuff for her life. To son Thomas, his third best pot of brass. To each of his daughters Jane, Barbara and Redagon, a brazen pan. To his son Nicholas Clapp, a pewter dish. Residue to Richard Clapp, his eldest son and heir, to whom he gave his lands and tenements in Venotry. Executor: son Richard Clapp. Overseers: his sons-in-law Francis Pile and Hercules Searles, to each of whom 21s. Witnesses : Nie Putt, Wm Winter, Christopher Whitmore.”

“Children…. Thomas3 Clapp … born in SIdbury, co. Devon about 1609… In 1630.. went to New England..died in Scituate Apr 20, 1684”

 

The earliest comprehensive account of this Clap family was Ebenezer Clapp's The Clapp Memorial. Record of the Clapp Family in America ... (Boston, MA: 1876), pp. 91-94. Brief mention was made in 1889 in NEHGR 15:255 (1861) and NEHGR 43:429 (1889). Mary Lovering Holman prepared The Scott Genealogy . . . (Boston 1919) p 22, 229 and Ancestry of Colonel John Harrington Stevens and his wife Frances Helen Miller (n.p. 1948) 1:280. In 1959 Edith Bartlett Surnner produced Edith Bartlett Sumner, Descendants of Thomas Farr of Harpswell, Maine, and Ninety Allied Families (Los Angeles 1959) 61-641. In 1945 Walter Goodwin Davis published an account in The Ancestry of Joseph Neal, 1769-c.1835 (Portland, Maine, 1945) 87-93. In 1992 a brief mention was made of Thomas Clapp by Gale Ion Harris in “Captain Richard Wright of the Twelve-Mile Island and the Burnhams of Podunk” in The American Genealogist 67:38. In 2001 Robert Charles Anderson, George F. Sanborn Jr. and Melinde Lutz Sanborn produced account in The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1634-1635 (Boston, MA: NEHGS 2001) 2:76-81. According to Robert Charles Anderson all of these accounts were superseded by the study of the Clapp family by Dean Crawford Smith and Melinde Lutz Sanborn in The Ancestry of Eva Belle Kempton, 1878-1908, Part IV: The Ancestry of Linda Anna Powers, 1839-1879 (Boston, MA: NEHGS 2000) 114-195. Anderson should know as he is editor and peer reviews the NEHGS publications and Melinde Lutz Sanborn was co-author of the Great Migration series. This is the most comprehensive study of the Clapp family ever published and includes extensive records from England. What does this study conclude? Thomas Clapp was son of Nicholas Clapp. Per PGM policy unless other more recent peer reviewed sources are presented we go by Anderson’s judgement. No other sources exist. Therefore the father of this profile should be changed to Nicholas Clapp.[1][2][3]

 

Robert Charles Anderson and Melinde Lutz Sanborn in The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1634-1635 (Boston, MA: NEHGS 2001) 2:76-81 link write:

 

"A second group of Clap siblings... came to New England: NICHOLAS CLAP {1637, Dorchester}, THOMAS CLAP {1638, Weymouth}; John Clap, who was in New England by the 1640s; Prudence Clap, wife of our Edward; Barbara Clap, wife of JOSEPH WELD {1635, Roxbury}; and Radigon Clap, who rnarried John Capen, son of BERNARD CAPEN {1633, Dorchester} Joseph Neal Anc 88-89; Scott Gen 227-30; Stevens-Miller Anc 1:278). Another sister, Jane Clap, was almost certainly wife of JOHN ALDERMAN {1634, Dorchester} {GM 2: 1:20-23}."

Note these were all the children of Nicholas Clapp per Melinde Lutz Sanborn in Kempton Ancestry: Nicholas Clapp named his children in his will: James, Thomas, Barbara, Radegon, John and Ambrose [Inquisition indented taken 2nd May 9 Charles [I][1633] of Nicholas Clapp died 12th March 7 Charles [1631/2] also Richard and Nicholas son and next heir were "24 years or more" on 2 May 1633. i.e 1609 or later. Thomas Clapp in Plymouth Colony Deed 4:176 deposed aged 69 in 1678 i.e. born 1608. Thomas died 20 Apr 1684. Thomas m/1 Jane ___ b say 1617 d bef Jan 1556 m/2 Abigail (Wright) Sharp b abt 1623 d btw 28 Nov 1702 (will) and 13 Feb 1707/8 (proved). Jane was mother to his six children. John Clapp in 1655 named in his will his brother Thomas Clapp and his children Elizabeth, Prudence, Samuel and "the rest of his children." [Suffolk Probate 1:111]. Thomas rec'd legacy from his father Nicholas 1631 and sailed 1637,Hingham lists 13 Mar 1638; Sidbury, Devon, England 5 Jun 1644; Transcription of Will and Inventory p 134-137

 

From Kempton Ancestry page 132 published in 2000 written by the co-author of The Great Migration and peer reviewed at NEHGS by Anderson:

 

"THOMAS1 CLAPP (Nicholas(A) Richard(B)), presumably born in Sidbury, Devonshire, England, about 1608; died in Scituate, Mass., 20 April 1684; married first say 1637 JANE __, born say 1617, died before January of 1656[/7?] when her husband is known to have remarried, kinswoman of Joan (Upham) Martin of Rehoboth; married second after January of 1655 and before 15 January 1656[17?]76 ABIGAIL (WRIGHT) SHARP, born in England about 1623 died between 28 November 1702 when she wrote her will and 13 February 1707[/8?] when her will was proved,79 daughter of RICHARD and MARGARET (__) WRIGHT.

Citations: Plymouth Colony Deed 4:176; Walter Goodwin Davis, The Ancestry of Joseph Neal, 91; Suffolk Probate 3:67,; Suffolk File #5400; Plymouth Probate #10242; Suffolk Probate 4:228; Scituate YR 2:397.

JOHN1 Clapp (Nicholas(A) Richard(B)), born say 1616; died in Dorchester, Mass., between 11 July 1655 when he wrote his will [Suffolk Probate 1:111] This very interesting will made when he suffered from "sicknes & great weakenes of body," named his wife, "my dear and loving brother Ambrose Clap [clearly still in England from the context of the will]", "my dear brother Richard Clap in England"; "my loving brother-in-law Edward Clap", "my loving cousins Richard and Elizabeth Clap children of my brother Richard Clap"; "my loving cousin Deborah Clap, daughter of ye said brother"; "my loving cousins Nathaniel, Ebenezer, Sarah and Hannah, brother Nicholas' children"; "my loving cousins Elizabeth, Prudence, and Samuel Clap children of my brother Thomas Clap"; "ye rest of his [Thomas'] children"; "my cousin John Capen"; "my dear and loving cousins Roger Claps children"; "my brother Nicholas, my brother Edward and my cousin Roger Clap."

I rest my case.
+3 votes
Browne-2064 also has the CORRECT parents and needs to be merged into -418 AFTER the parents of -418 are corrected.
by David Mason G2G6 (8.4k points)
Thanks David!

Good work on the early genealogy of this family.
Parents detached. Merge re proposed.
+7 votes
Don't go Roland! There still too much work to do and not enough solid researchers who understand the need to actually cite sources!
by Jeanie Roberts G2G6 Pilot (141k points)
Adding my voice to Jeanie's. Roland and Ellen, I adore you both. You both do fine exemplary work. Somehow the two of you got off to a bad start or something went awry somewhere. I'd like to request that you both hit the reset button for each other and start fresh. Would you be willing to do that ?

Just re-iterating what I wrote last August:

"Adding my voice to Jeanie's. Roland and Ellen, I adore you both. You both do fine exemplary work. Somehow the two of you got off to a bad start or something went awry somewhere. I'd like to request that you both hit the reset button for each other and start fresh. Would you be willing to do that ?"

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