Do researchers agree that this Bolling is a disproven ancestor? What else can I do for this profile?

Question

Do I have the TAGS right?

Please let me know so I can do the right thing for this profile 

Comments

With Robert Bolling as our historic Connection profile of the week, I have been cleaning up all stray possible Pocahontas & Bollings/Bowlings descendants and their Virginia relatives to the best of my ability. 

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Bolling-34

---

Not directly answering your question, but my oh my, Maggie, you have really taken in an important task for yourself! Hopefully, this will set this large and important family aright and keep all those legendary lines from ruining the Tree! Go for it! 

---

Question: the profile linked to has a Disproven Existence template on it, but the opening text includes this:

DNA evidence has proven that he is not a descendant of Pocahontas. Some even suggest that he may be a made up person along with his wife in order to connect to the Pocahontas line. 

If he didn't exist, how can there be DNA evidence to disprove his descendancy from Pocahontas?

---

PS and THANK YOU both Maggie and Misty for taking this on.

I remember when Pocahontas was the subject of a profile of the week and what a nightmare that became!  (But ultimately good as it re-kickstarted the "mythology" subproject of the Native American project.)

---

Because descendants of this supposed man have y-tested and do not link to any of the Pocahontas line that has been tested. William now falls under one of the 12 Blue Bolling's which are now thought to be ficticious and made up to trace the descendents to Pocahontas in the Zelma Wells Price book. It's not just him either, it's many of his supposed descendants that seem to be made up as well. While there is a great deal of legitimate people attached to this line, it seems that anytime they couldn't figure out a spouse, they made up a Bolling or Randolph to fit the line. As well as added children with names like Meotaka, Powhatan or gave middle names like Randolph or Bolling to make them look legit.

Answer 1

Not a job for the faint hearted, well done Maggie!

Answer 2

This has been a ongoing question amongst many researchers. No group has been able to prove or disprove William or Amelia's legitimacy as real people. They however have removed them from being from the Pocahontas line. Most have concluded that they are likely made up people. First showing up in the Zelma Wells Price book to link this line of people to Pocahontas line. I believe there were 12 children that have been now considered the "Blue Bollings", all showing up in this book.

What's the bad part is who do their children belong too if not them? How far down the line does the discrepancies go? This is my family lineage. I used to use the book as my resource until I found out its been disputed. It's still listed as a source on quite a few of my profiles. I am slowly weeding through and trying to find other sources  for each of these profiles, but many times I don't see them until posts about the family come up and I start researching them again.

If anyone finds out new info, I would love to hear it. This branch has been a thorn in many of our sides for a bit now.

Comments

Misty, I am so glad you chimed in as you have done a lot of admirable work on this situation for which I THANK you from the bottom of my heart!

---

Well, I thank you as well for taking on such a task. It also got me researching this part of family again. I am working on my line up until this point. Trying to get rid of the Zelma Wells book stuff and add real sources. This part of the family is going to be a mess to figure out. I think that as we research we may just find that other family members may or may not be real. I do know that there is some Bolling and Randolph connections, but I have no clue if they tie into the real family or if it's other families with the same name. This has been my thoughts all along. They may show up as Blue Bolling parents, but what if they were from another branch of the family or another family with same last names? Anyway, I am working my way up to William and Amelia on my line through the Weatherbee family. We will see what that leads too, if anything. Fingers crossed.

Answer 3

Maggie, I have gone through my William and Amelia line and removed all the unproven that I could find. I may have missed a few because there is a lot of them. I marked each of them with bold notes explaining the removall of parents or children. And tagged them with the Disputed Existence and Disproven Existence Project. I haven't however went through the other children yet of William and Amelia. I will try to get on those soon. I have a feeling that I have just stirred the pot.

Comments

Many months later, thanks for your work on this, Misty.  The Bolling lines have come up again because a new member accidentally created a duplicate branch of Pocahontas descendants that we are cleaning up.  While doing so, I stumbled upon this thread.  I see that William is still attached to two wives and a son.  When we have a disproven existence profile it's my understanding that they should be detached from all relationships though linked to in the narrative.  

Shall we go ahead and do that here?

Answer 4

For further developments on this discussion, please see

the further December G2G 2022 discussion!