Disproven Existence Notice: Unknown Collineau de Montaguerre

Question

"Unknown" or "Inconnue" Collineau de Montaguerre, sometimes just "Collineau de Montaguerre" (with Collineau as first name) is supposed to be the ancestress of many, many French emigrants, usually in New France.  She is, usually, the last female ancestor in a line, associated with unknown husbands. Apart from her unusual and strange name, it is fairly unlikely that the wife of an unknown 16th or 17th century man would be known. A simple look at her profile shows how improbable she is, with currently 38 husbands representing the 30+ different emigrant descendants (grandchildren or great-grandchilden) she is supposed to have.

This "Unknown" (Inconnue in French) has puzzled many, and to make a long story short, it was decided that she was probably, initially, someone's code for and end-of-line ancestor, and that this joke propagated. This has already been discussed here and here. I think it's time to decide that she did not exist and officially move her to the Disproven Existence project. This means that all the "unknown" husbands she's connected to will be disconnected and replaced by links in her biography.

She could not have been Collineau (given name) de Montaguerre (family name), because women were not given "Collineau" as a given name (Colinot would be possible for a man, from "Colin", a variant of Nicolas). The family name "de Montaguerre" is rare, if not non-existent (since 1891, there has been one "de Montagère" birth in France, after 1966), which rules out the possibility of several different, unrelated people called "Collineau de Montaguerre".

There is however a real "Collineau de Montaguère" family. This family started after the 1794 marriage of Hippolyte Joseph Collineau and Françoise Charlotte Ollivier, daughter of Joseph Ollivier sieur de la Montaguère. Their son, born Hippolyte Collineau, used the name Collineau de Montaguère later in life, and transmitted it to his descendants. There was no one with the name Collineau de Montaguère (or Montaguerre, for that matter) before 1794.

(edited to correct links)

Comments

your links ''here'' and ''here'' are the same link, the second could possibly be https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/15706/who-was-inconnue-collineau-de-montaguerre

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Thanks Danielle, indeed it was the second thread I meant. Fixed the links and added links to the real Collineau family.

Answer 1

Fine by me that she gets moved to that project.  I think I wound up with a good dozen of her in my own tree when I first came here and connected my known ancestors to others already in WikiTree.  And having played adoption angel at one time, wound up with all these strange profiles that had no sources.

Disconnecting the spurious husbands however leaves us open to having them getting re-created.  They are just as much a ''fantasy'' as she is.  Certainly the purported descendants had ancestors, they would not exist otherwise.  But all of these men are ''Unknown so-and-so'', sometimes the last name didn't even match the last name of the supposed child.  All the children have been disconnected.  If these profles are disconnected from hers they will be either loose unattached profiles or recycled to something else, so a bio link to them will be entirely misleading.

Comments

Each of the husbands needs a note at the top of the profile explaining that they were previously connected to her and that any new profile this name who is a husband to her is a duplicate.  This note should include a back link to her profile.

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Yes, we will need to document the husbands and we could put them at least in the Trusted List of the Disproven Existence Project to be able to monitor changes.

I'm in the process of documenting the husbands, but in some cases I'm unable to trace who was the purported migrant descendant.

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will take a look at them later and see what I can find.

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already traced 3 of them, and proposed a couple of merges of some of these ''husbands''.  Am putting the individual children's links on the ''father's'' profiles.

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done all I could on this, leaving her and all her husbands to your care.  Henry the Eight just didn't have a clue compared to her.  

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And her 40 husbands are over a 150-year period, I mean, who can top this?

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oh, as a note, when I first started dealing with this plethora of husbands, some of them did not actually have children linked to them.  That I do remember.

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I looked up the first half dozen and for some of them do not have a clue who the children might have been.

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Just checked out the profile out of morbid curiosity and backed away like a scared bunny. Dani, Belle....good luck!!!!

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E. Martin sent me some messages with identities of a few more, so they are now marked on the ''husband's'' profiles.  I think the majority are now identified.  Including the two who were set as half-siblings and married together.  sigh.

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There used to be a link to an enlightening Geneanet profile on Joseph Gagnon XIII, one of her "husbands".

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there's an image on that profile that links to several other profiles also.

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"... backed away like a scared bunny..."

change it to an answer and I'll select it as best...

... wipes coffee from monitor.

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Done and done, SJ.

Answer 2

Collineau Demontaguerre

More spouses and children ... in the Conk/Robillard Family Tree ! ! ! 

https://www.genealogieonline.nl/en/conk-robillard-family-tree/P15224.php

Comments

oh my gawds!  And contact with the author is not possible.  Maybe this should be added as reference on her profile to show how wild she is once again.

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Bonjour Danielle,

The author (Robillard) is not in Québec ...

Josephine Clementine Conk was born on March 20, 1916 in Brooklyn, Kings, New York, Usa, daughter of Capt George Washington Conk Sr. and C Teressa Costello-Conk. She was married on April 29, 1939 in Resurrection Church, 2325 Gerrittsen Aveenue, Brooklyn, Ny 11229 to Alfred Louis Robillard, they had 6 children. She died on August 25, 2008 in East Islip, Suffolk, New York, USA, she was 92 years old.

https://www.genealogieonline.nl/en/conk-robillard-family-tree/P22.php

https://www.genealogieonline.nl/fr/conk-robillard-family-tree/P23.php

Answer 3

I created the following Research Notes: "This person has been linked as a husband of Collineau de Montaguerre. No documentation has been found for the existence of such a marriage, and in fact, Collineau de Montaguerre herself is not believed to have ever existed. Collineau de Montaguerre is found as the earliest French ancestor in a number of popular genealogies of immigrants across the Atlantic to New France. Refer to her site for more information and to Category:Collineau de Montaguerre Unknowns for links to other associated persons." on the profile for "Unknown de Monmainier".  This is intended to be a generic note that can be copied to the profile of ALL 32 (and now apparently more) of her "husbands."  

Please suggest any ways this generic note can be helpfully improved before I do any copying to other husband profiles!

Comments

looks good to me

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Thanks, Jack!

As suggested elsewhere, might be good to add a French translation as well.

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indeed, very good point, I see you created the translation already.  Thanks.

Answer 4

Regarding the danger of having husbands re-created -- since Collineau's profile is managed by the Disproven Existence Project, any such changes will immediately be flagged to project members, who can take corrective action.  While it's of course annoying to have to correct errors, sometimes it's easier to have a system for doing that, then to go through contortions to try to keep such a thing from happening!

Comments

the point was mainly in keeping them from being merged into another profile and the note about their former connection being removed by well-meaning cleaner-uppers. (I think I invented that word just now).

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I think I'm going to put the project on the trusted list of the orphaned ones (there are several) so at least we'll be sure to keep an eye on those and prevent merges.

I expect we'll keep finding new lines where she was connected as "ancestor" for some time to come.

Answer 5

LOL if this wasn't so time consuming and frustrating it would be entirely funny.  I have had her somewhere in my line too.  Thank you, Isabelle, for taking the reins on this mess and the development of a more permanent solution.  How such a non-person could be propagated so far over so many years and husbands is a good example of the power of unsourced family trees.

Answer 6

Because SJ Baty demanded it.....

Saw this profile out of morbid curiosity and backed away like a scared bunny. Good luck, Dani and Belle! May whatever God you believe in have mercy on your souls!

Answer 7

So is the next step to disconnect her from the tree? Do we need to prove the existence of her 1000000 husbands and children and descendants first?

Comments

She is disconnected. (I mean none of her husbands is currently connected to descendants, so she's in an isolated island).

Nearly all of her husbands, and some of her purported children and sometimes grandchildren, are also imaginary. It's really a mess.