WikiTree currently, and many online trees, list Dorothy (Wheatley) Bliss as the daughter of Frank Wheatleigh of Maiden Newton, Dorset. Wheatley baptisms including a Dorothy, are listed in Genealogy of the Wheatley Family 1902, pp. 12-13, but this book says nothing about Dorothy marrying a Bliss or anyone else. (According to the note on Dorothy's profile, the book's hint that Mary (Fiennes) Wheatleigh was Dorothy's mother is baseless.)
Do the Maiden Newton baptism records actually exist? What's the primary source for them?
Is there proof that this Dorothy Wheatleigh/Wheatley is the same Dorothy Wheatley who married Thomas Bliss (later emigrant to Braintree and Rehoboth) in 1614 in Daventry, Northamptonshire? There might be, I just haven't seen it.
On the other hand, Hoppin's Bliss Book 1913, p. 158-9, gives Dorothy's father as John Wheatlye, mercer, who is recorded in Daventry in 1615, served as bailiff in 1619, and is further recorded there in 1617, 1623, 1626, 1629, 1631, and 1634.
The Bliss Book has some serious problems as outlined by the respected Donald Lines Jacobus in Hale, House and Related Families 1952, pp. 476-7. But Hoppin's parish and town records are well-researched - it's his interpretation of certain records that is sketchy.
John Wheatlye of Daventry is more thoroughly documented in records of the time than most of the Blisses in the Bliss Book, and like many members of the Bliss family, he's a prominent mercer. This gives us a good explanation as to how/why a Wheatley daughter might have met and married a Bliss son. Meanwhile, the records for Frank Wheatleigh are in Maiden Newton, which is nowhere near Daventry, and no theory is offered to explain how/why that Dorothy got from one town to the other or how she would have crossed paths with Thomas Bliss.
In other words, there appears to be a lot better evidence for Dorothy being the daughter of John Wheatlye of Daventry than of Frank Wheatleigh of Maiden Newton. And even that evidence is pretty thin, since no actual records connect her to John either.
It seems to me that if the evidence for John isn't solid enough to link him as Dorothy's parent on WikiTree, then the evidence for Frank definitely isn't, in which case all her parents should be detached.
Thoughts?
(While we're at it, is there any actual evidence for Dorothy's death or burial? I've seen 1631 in Daventry thrown around with 1646 in Rehoboth and I believe both are bogus. 1646 surely came from someone forgetting to copy the word "before", since Thomas' 1647 will doesn't name her.)
Thanks everyone!