John, I agree that there was no reason for those changes to have been made. You are correct about wanting source citations to be displayed under the Sources heading. It's also commendable that you are using the <ref> … </ref> tags to cause them to be footnoted at the statements in the biography that they support.
Looking at the content of the Biography, though, I can see where the person who made those changes thought they were doing a good thing. The statements to which you appended the <ref> … </ref> citations aren't actually statements - they're just the names of the sources.
I would remove the list of source names from the Biography section and (because there are no statements in the Biography to which footnotes could be appended) place the citations under the <references /> tag below the Sources section, using asterisks to make them a bulleted list.
If you can make an actual statement in the Biography section of a fact that the source supports, then the <ref> …</ref> tags would appropriately follow such statements, for example:
Matthew owned 130 acres of land in West Virginia.<ref>10 Apr 1769 Greenbrier, (W)VA 130 acres. Abstract of Land Grant Surveys 1761-1791 Peter Cline Kaylor, Rockingham Historical Society (1938)</ref>
