How certain are we about Thomas' parents?

+1 vote
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The profile for Thomas Hollowell lists his parents as William and Elizabeth Coppingford Hollowell. My question is how this information is known. According to the late genealogist Vikki Hollowell Highfield:

Seventeenth century naming practices were to name the first son and daughter after the father's parents, the second son and daughter after the mother's parents, the third son and daughter were named after the parents, and other children were named after siblings and other relatives. Although this was not set in stone, Thomas and Alice did name their third daughter Alice.

According to that logic, Thomas father would have also been named Thomas. However, another old Hollowell genealogist, Lucy Elliott Hollowell, surmises that because Thomas and Alice named two children "John" (the second was born after the first one died as a teenager), she believes that such naming would indicate that Thomas' father would also have been named John. 

Does anyone have definitive proof one way or the other?

WikiTree profile: Thomas Hollowell
in Genealogy Help by Rhoads Hollowell G2G Crew (340 points)
Ah, the murky waters of the Chuckatuck Hollowells. Welcome. You can read about various naming conventions but there are always exceptions and deviations. You can read one set of conventions for Quakers in Penn's colony and something different for another. They may provide clues but I don't find them terribly helpful. Have you looked at the Chuckatuck Monthly Meeting records? Most of the Hollowells were Quaker and many appear in those meeting minutes however the minutes are not complete and there are two or three different transcriptions of them.
I should have mentioned he is a 9th ggf. Unless there is primary source documentation for the parents or a verifiable secondary source (such as meeting minutes that would identify the English county of origin as they sometimes do and then an English birth record), the connection cannot be considered valid. You were correct to mark them as Uncertain.
Thanks for your responses. Yes, I am reading more about the Hollowells and other early Quakers at this time. I still think that Lucy Elliott Hollowell has the best take I have seen, which is that it is most likely that Thomas's father was named John. Of course, that doesn't mean it is correct, but it makes the most sense to me. Unless, of course, it is Alice's father who is John.

I think the parents are improbable. In 2017, I wrote a note about the marriage of William Hollowell and Elizabeth Coppinforth in Hardingstone, Northamptonshire https://www.ancestry.co.uk/sharing/18614055?h=2f0bbd&utm_campaign=bandido-webparts&utm_source=post-share-modal&utm_medium=copy-url

I think it would be a very big coincidence if there were another such marriage 20 years earlier.

That would seem to be a very big coincidence indeed. In fact, that might be enough evidence to remove the existing parents from Thomas Hollowell. I don't want to step on anyone's toes, however. What is the protocol for doing such a thing?

I agree. I think that like you, I was worried about treading on toes when I wrote that note; hence the wording. There has been no  further research in 3 years. 

I originally tackled the 'fathers' profile because of this question

 https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/49875/who-john-hollowells-parents-from-northhamptonshire-england It was Northamptonshire profile with no sources,  and I was at the time 'team leader' for Northamptonshire i.e not through any particular interest in the family.

I think that it would be a good idea to write a comment  on the profile proposing , with reasons  to unlink Thomas from the Northamptonshire couple. (With the new system the comment could be copied to G2G ).If there are no objections, then go ahead and do it but write a disputed parents section within the profile. I note that the profile itself says he is from Lancashire but I can't see any evidence for that either. It also might be a good idea  to contact the Quaker project about protection (would stop other parents being added without discussion.)

Tread on those toes! Every time I look at these PGM (or Quaker) profiles they're just full of errors from an English perspective. People being born and married in completely different places on other sides of the country. Also I was going to suggest that Sarah and Thomas's birth years need to be bumped up by one as they're before 25 March but I see RJ Horace has already edited one. Their birthplaces should be changed from England though and the profile text be made consistent.

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