Help needed to sort out profile that combines two people and has duplicates

Question

Yes, boring, I know. I came upon this while running an Error Report on Williams-42817, a profile I manage. At Generation 9, I get error 409, Marriage to duplicate person. I look at the profiles and find two John Tompkins who are each married to two Rebecca Knights. One of the Rebeccas is married to three John Tompkins. It's obvious that some cleanup is needed, but it can't be done straight away.

1 - [http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Tompkins-105 John Tompkins] is married to [http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Knight-467 Rebecca Knight]. This is fine, except that the bio lists a daughter, Rebecca, who is not linked to the profiles; I found her, with another set of John Tompkins / Rebecca Knight as parents. Tompkins-105 is also married to [http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Knight-445 Rebecca Knight] who is also married to two other John Tompkins (and also to someone else, Abiel Somerby). Knight-445 has a lot more children that Knight-467, including Rebecca.

2 - [http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Thompkins-21 John Thompkins] is only married to Knight-445. There is this comment on the profile:

"This profile is a composite of John Tompkins of Concord and Fairfield, Mass. and Eastchester, New York, and John Tompkins of Salem who married Rebecca Knight and never left Salem."

Fair enough. I find somewhere else (I'm beginning to lose track) that John Thompkins of Concord, etc. was married to Elizabeth Unknown.

So I post a comment saying "why not decide this one is Tompkins of Concord, since we have Tompkins-105, who seems fine as Tompkins of Salem?"

I also add a comment in the bio saying "please do not merge with Tompkins-105" and set them as rejected matches (they were set as unmerged).

Then I realise that Thompkins-21 has profile managers who are probably convinced that their Thompkins is the true Tompkins of Salem.

So what is to be done? I'm sorry to leave the mess as it is, but surely someone more experienced might tackle it. I won't even get into the third Tompkins married to one of the Rebeccas. I didn't open the profile.

To all who got this far: thank you!

Comments

Glad to have you here at WikiTree, Isabelle. We benefit from brave people who are willing to try to tackle messes like this one. :-)

Skimming the histories of the profiles, I get the impression that the Thompkins/Tompkins profiles were supposedly sorted out some time ago, but then somebody mistakenly merged some content from the Salem man (Tompkins-105) into Thompkins-21 (or maybe it's content from Thompkins-21 that got added to Tompkins-105). I think that your plan to distinguish the two profiles makes sense. I suggest that you ask Vic Watt for help on this, as she worked on these people before and she is a Leader who could project-protect the profiles in hopes of reducing the chance of future mistakes.

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I suppose that it is time to fry this goose as it has been cooking for 3 1/2 years...

It does appear that John Sr. has two sons named John, one from Salem where the rest of the family comes from and the other from Concord.  The John from Concord needs to be detached from this family and sorted.  Both Johns have wives Rebecca Knight.  She surely only belongs with one husband and the two profiles need to be merged.  According to your notes, Concord John should be married to possibly Elizabeth.

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Oh dear, what a blast from the past! I'm almost afraid to look at the profiles now.

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The second Rebecca Knight is terrifying. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Knight-3219

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I will post a link to this discussion in the comments of ALL of the profiles and we can start a dialogue to fix it.

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I've retagged this question to remove tags like data_doctors and arborists (this isn't an issue for freelance data doctors) and add two of the relevant surnames and pgm (these people aren't PGMs, but children of PGMs often are documented in the Great Migration Project resources).

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Yes, just today I noticed the PGM connection.  I've never seen this line before but on the 52 Ancestor's challenge another Treer mentioned that we're 10th cousins.  I followed the line and found unsourced, conflated, duplicated spouses, etc., in this line and thought to fix it.  In the comments I found this thread.  Because I have a vested interest in it I'll try to herd the cats along towards the goal posts...  and see if this may turn out to be my first PGM line (I have not yet identified one).

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Thanks, Ellen. It's sort of odd that this question was here for so long with this incongruous tag (for my defense I was very very new when I started this discussion - I might not be so daring now!)

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Related profiles:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Tompkins-105 - John Tompkins of Salem, connected as son of https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Tompkins-106 - John Tompkins (PGM migrant)

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Tompkins-1779 - John Tompkins of Concord (unsourced profile)

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Tompkins-356 - John Tompkins of Concord ("not John Tompkins of Salem who married Rebecca Knight"), son of https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Tompkins-358 - John Tompkins (PGM migrant; "do not confuse him with John Tompkins of Salem or marry him to Rebecca Knight")

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Tompkins-1183 - John Edward Tompkins Jr of Concord and Eastchester, NY, same birth data and same father as Tompkins-356, married to Rebecca Knight (this profile is a hot mess!)

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Knight-3219 - Rebecca Knight , connected as daughter of https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Knight-133 - Richard Knight (PGM migrant)

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Knight-445 - Rebecca Knight, connected as daughter of https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Knight-893 - Philip Knight (PGM migrant, profile shows him living at Charlestown, Lancaster, and Topsfield).

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Thanks; I've added this to my sandbox and will chip away at it this month.

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I think this is the "real" John Tompkins of Concord: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Tompkins-356

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I've spent the last 48 hours reserching this and I think I have it figured out.  Here is what is currently on WT and matches the work of JA Tompkins in 1942:

Stephen Tompkins Sr. [Tompkins-1002], b. 1741, New Castle, NY, d. Kinderhook 1794.

son of Nathniel Tompkins (1011), b. abt. 1705, d. 1771 in Philips, Dutchess, NY, m. Mary Forshay

son of Nathaniel Tompkins, b. 1678 in Salem, MA, m. Mary (Pasco)

son of John Tompkins, b. 1644, Salem, m. one of the duplicate Rebecca Nights.

JA Tompkins went on to write a massive 14 volume work on the Tompkins families between 1957 and 1961 and died while he was finishing it.  It has been published in its raw form and we can see that he has fixed a lot of his earlier conflation errors.

Stephen's line then shows:

Stephen Tompkins, b. 1740, NY, father of Hanna Tompkins who married Abraham DeGroff (this matches his DAR records that shows him in Luddington's regiment)

son of Stephen Tompkins, b. 1705, NY, m. Anne (Stephen's brother Nathniel, who married Mary Forshay is listed on the line above, his son Cornelius also served in Luddington's regiment.  I found both of them and a third Tompkins who is probably brother to one of these boys and cousin to the other. Note: Luddington's Regiment is in the Dutchess County Miltia, these families are from Dutchess County so far and not from Salem, MA.)

son of Nathaniel, b. 1678, NY, d. 1732,  m. Elizabeth Cornell

son of Nathaniel Tompkins, b. 1633, d. 1684 in Rochester, NY, m. Elizabeth White

son of John Tompkins (of Concord), b. 1610, d. Fairfield, Conn., m. Margaret (listed as Goodman, WT research shows UNK)

son of Ralph Tomkins, b. 1585, d. 1666, Bridgewater, MA? m. Katherine Foster, couple migrated to America in 1636

And so, it looks like this line in its last generations is from NY and was conflated into the other line from MA.

I will go in to Stephen's parents/grandparents and disconnect the incorrect wives and merge them with the duplicates and source them as I go.

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Thanks SJ for reviving this and for everyone who has worked trying to fix it all these years.

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I heartily concur with Jillaine. Thank you, SJ!

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I'm posting my first round of findings as an answer and will add to that answer as I make progress on this.

Answer 1

Looks much worse than I originally anticipated: serious conflation in many lines.  In reading one article, it appears that the genesis of all these conflated lines my be RA Tompkins the author.  It seems that he made many incorrect connections and after his works were published, they were treated as gospel and now abound in the internet.

From the FtDNA Tompkins Y-DNA group page:

Some of the myths have been perputated by the work of Robert Angus Tompkins.  While some of his work and assumptions may be accurate, a lot is not.  The Los Angeles Public Library has been able to digitize ten typescript volumes of "The Clan ofTomkyns" by Robert Angus Tompkins as well as four additional volumes by him which are called "The Clan of Tomkyns, Descendants of Girls", all published by him in 1957. All are in pdf format and are large files. The link is http://www.lapl.org/central/tomkyns.html.  The Clan of Tomkyns is a good place to start looking for your lineage, but additional documentary sources for confirmation are needed as there are many provable errors in the series of books and the books do not cite any documentary evidence for the claims as does a book like "Adventurers of Purse and Person," published by First Families of Virginia, which books also unfortunately contain errors and judgments based on the documentary evidence, the difference being that the evidence is cited.  

The name Tompkins probably is more frequent than the records show and as a result, one man may have a birth record and no death record and another Tompkins man in another county may have a death record and no birth record and when the two items are published together we end up with New York sons of Massachusetts and Conneticut fathers.

In looking at some of the WikiTree profiles of the Salem and Conn. profiles I see that they are properly sourced and conflict with RA Tompkins.  We will need to go profile by profile and isolate what is proven in the actual docs and discount the RA Tompkins material.  Thinking about it now, I suppose we may need an RA Tompkins free space page discussing this situation and probably a category so that any profile that has a dubious connectiong can have an RA Tompkins section.  When new Treers come with their GED upload, they will have to be initiated to the uncomfortable reality that their supposed PGM connection is bunk - as I have just come to learn .

Some of the lines that will need to be deconflicted are the:

Salem, MA
Conn
Eastchester, Westchester, NY
Albany/Dutchess, NY

and so on.

The bottom line is that this will need to be addressed head on because with the prolific use of RA Tompkins' work, these conflation issues will come back again and again.

Answer 2

There are several problems with this (these) line(s).  Probably the biggest factor is the conflation of the Tompkins families from Westchester and Salem.  A clear distinction needs to be made between the two lines and unfortunately, many late 19th century and early 20th century works merge the families together and these genealogies persist throughout FS, Ancestry, WT, and other sites.

The work should probably start from the top and what appears to be the earliest conflation begins between John Tompkins of Westchester (likely before 1620 - before 1661) [Tompkins-358], (parents unknown) married to Unknown (Unknown) Tompkins, and John Tompkins of Salem (1644 - abt. 1706) [Tompkins-105], (son of Ralph Tompkins) m. to Rebecca (Knight) Tompkins.

As described on the profile of John of Westchester's profile:

John Tompkins appears early in Plymouth, moved to Concord, Massachusetts, and finally to Fairfield, Connecticut. He stands at the head of the Westchester, New York Tompkins family. The is no evidence to link them with Ralph Tompkins and the Salem Massachusetts Tompkins family or with Nathaniel Tompkins of the Rhode Island Tompkins family.

I plan to post a link to this question on all of the profiles in these two lines and hopefully we can get them sorted out.

Comments

In the 1942 work "Tomkins-Tompkins Genealogy" by Robert and Clare Tompkins, we can see the grafting of the Westchester family to the Salem family on pages 10 & 11 (images are linked to full size copies):

Unless published in an earlier work, this is likely the source of much of the internet conflation we find today.

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I think this line, starting at John Edward Tompkins, is artificially grafted to the Salem family. It seems pretty clear that John Tompkins of Salem's only son was Nathaniel.

Answer 3

I began a Research Notes section on the profile of Rebecca (Knight) Somersby, as this profile is conflating two Rebecca Knights. The "John Edward Tompkins" she is connected to looks like an attempt to connect a different Tompkins line to the Massachusetts Tompkins. The profile is also borrowing Rebecca (Knight) Tompkins's death date, which induces an error, since Rebecca Somersby seems to have remarried in 1691.

Comments

I got myself invited to the Tompkins DNA project at FtDNA today but the results are pretty disappointing.  Very few test subjects and the matches don't have any ancestors that match many of the profiles here.

Something to do: encourage surname Tompkins men to sign up for Y-DNA tests!

Answer 4

I mad a lot of the Tompkins profiles, and I had to make them twice because someone mashed them into the Salem Tompkins profiles. When I made the new set, I also make the Salem Tompkins profiles to make very clear that they are distinct families. A lot of traditional family genealogies are based on 19th century books which contained bad guesses about these families.

Re: the Robert Tompkins book mentioned below, Robert Tompkins made a second book in which he corrected many of his mistakes of the first one. The second one was not published but is available online as a PDF from the Los Angeles library.

Answer 5

I'm not sure why this notice: In a few days I plan to disconnect members of this line, their spouses, merge duplicates to the MA line, and create new members that are missing. If anyone has any input on this, please join the discussion at the link above. 

Is posted on  Margaret Unknown https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Unknown-433813 and her husband John Tompkins  https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Tompkins-106

as they both seem to be correct from the most recent research in ENEF. Williams, Alicia Crane, John Tompkins 1609-1681