I want to know why so many people are still trying to link Matthew Strickland of Maryland with Matthew of Virginia?

Question

There are some really bad genealogies that mix these men up, especially with the DAR.

Records are clear, Matthew Strickland and Elizabeth Loreen came over as indentured servants to Maryland in 1680 on the Globe and had to serve the indenture to John Tanner because they could not pay their own way. Both of them passed intestate by 1691 and records show their belongings were inventoried and no heirs claimed them.

My Matthew Strickland married an Elizabeth unknown last name in Virginia and had lots of children all born before 1680 in Virginia were he owned a large plantation. This large plantation was recieved by two grants in 1678 and 1680 because my Matthew Strckland was rich enough to pay for the transportation of 54 persons who had to serve indenture to him.

So, while Matthew and Elizabeth Loreen were "servants" to John Tanner in Maryland, My Matthew in Virginia was benefitting of the labor of his own 54 "white servants."

Do the math....

Answer 1

Many people fail to realize how important it is to check the dates!!

Answer 2

I dunno why, but I've noticed a few cases where genealogists keep determinedly trying to make connections where one does not seem to exist. I've seen it in one of my ancestral branches, where my family of Brocks keeps getting linked to another family of Brocks in the same vague geographical area. There's no actual documentation plus the YDNA is completely different, and the simplest explanation is that Brock is not that unusual of a surname and they were not connected.

I've also seen cases where, say, John and Mary Smith are credited with two dozen children born across various English parishes over a 30 year period. Because someone found a baptism in Yorkshire in 1765, and figured it has to be the same John and Mary who baptized another child in London in 1780. Just... why.

Again, in another family line of mine, Mary Fullegar is attached as the mother of my ancestor. She married a man named John East in 1800 in England. The three men attached as their sons were born in Virginia and South Carolina between 1765-1783. Again, no one stopped to think this one through.

Answer 3

The answer to your specific question is fairly simple:  "Because they don't know better."  

But once you know better, what do you do?  I took a look at the profiles and there is extensive work remaining to be done.  There seem to be several duplicates of the Virginia Matthew Strickland and all of them married to duplicate Elizabeth Loreens.  Since these profiles are of interest to you, here is what I would propose you do:

1.  Since there are two Matthew Stricklands, but only one Elizabeth Loreen (once merges are accomplished), I'd suggest you start with Elizabeth.  Ask to be on the trusted list of the various Elizabeth Loreens and choose one to work on.  If the profile manager is active, coordinate with the profile manager.

2.  Get the well sourced information you clearly have, and enter it on Elizabeth Loreen's biography just as you have in your initial note.  For the remaining Elizabeth Loreens, proposes that they be merged into your Maryland Elizabeth, or have their LNAB changed to Elizabeth Unknown, the Virginia Elizabeth.

3.  All of the Matthew Stricklands at present appear to be the Virginia Matthew.  By the time you have finished work on Elizabeth it may be clear that one of them can be re-purposed, in coordination with its profile manager, to be the Maryland Matthew.  Or it may be simpler to create a new Maryland Matthew from scratch.  Because of your work on Elizabeth, you will have sufficient good sourcing to justify doing that.  Standards for creating a pre-1700 profile are higher and you should not do it if you only have Ancestry or other unsourced information to work with.  You may want to include a Research Notes section explaining why the Maryland couple are different from the Virginia couple.

4.  Once you have a good Maryland Elizabeth and Matthew -- they're the simple ones because they have no children to worry about -- consider all the remaining ones Virginia ones.  Propose merges for the ones that are duplicates, and make sure none of the Virginia Elizabeth's have a last name of Loreen.  

5.  Stay on the trusted list of your Maryland couple.  If you discover in the future someone else trying to turn them into the Virginia couple, request that the Maryland couple be Project Protected.  That will prevent most people from being able to change the LNAB or adding  relatives who don't belong there.

Answer 4

I have encountered some profiles containing research notes and a bolded statement at the top insisting that this person should not be connected to family X again without compelling evidence. Have you tried that?

Answer 5

I just finished a little bit of work on Matthew Strickland Sr (abt. 1639 - 1696)/Strickland-337, and I must say that the identification of his line on FamilySearch has no doubt contributed to the confusion. I finally decided to just step back and maybe when I return later, someone will have figured out who belongs where - between both FamilySearch and WikiTree, but also in the line.  

If you have any insights on Strickland-337, that would be great to reinforce or else redirect connections, as needed. The profile states that parentage is disputed, but one source from FamilySearch makes him the son of Jacob (one of the possible origins stated). Also, one of his ancestors was misaligned on FamilySearch and as it stands now, some of the sources that belong to the next generation are actually attached to an earlier one.

Comments

We know there is more than one Matthew Strickland -- but at this moment we don't know how many Matthew Stricklands there actually are.  One of the most common errors in genealogy is to assume that if you have a John Smith born in Virginia in 1642 and a John Smith who married Susanna Jones in Virginia in 1660, that they are the same John Smith.  The names, dates and locations certainly make it plausible -- but it's still possible that they are not the same person.  The key is to keep aggregating documented information on the profile until things become more clear.  

It's also important to begin thinking of the different persons by some distinguishing feature.  "Matthew Strickland of Maryland."  "Matthew Strickland of Virginia."  This will help keep your brain from tying facts in knots.  Or vice versa.

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What is the status of this, please? Has the conflation been deflated? ;-)

Once done all relevant profiles should be project protected to prevent future conflation.

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Jillaine, that's a great question. I don't see a Matthew Strickland of Maryland tagged in the main question of this G2G, here, either, but the discussion does seem to identify a few candidates (married to Loreen). I know that Matthew Strickland "the Tailor" (Strickland-337) has a Loreen in error problem, who I will work to recycle as an unknown surname spouse, but that leaves other candidate profiles.

As is noted on 337's profile, I'll also be working to add back the skipped generation, and separating the undocumented parents...

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I am looking at the wife of Matthew Strickland of Virginia (the one who can also be distinguished as "the Tailor"[citing King, p. 4: "The only hint of Mathew's profession in the records was a mention of his tailoring skills in the estate of..."]), and she should be Elizabeth "Unknown;" whereas, she is Elizabeth Loreen. 

I am wondering what the best strategy is for handling the disconnection: I assume that I should clean-up Elizabeth (Loreen) Strickland and then detach her, since she is attached to her presumptive parents; alternatively, I could detach her from her parents, and get on the trusted list and then change her surname to unknown - the advantage of the latter strategy is that 10 children belong to Elizabeth Unknown and Matthew Strickland (and Loreen and her separate and distinct Matthew Strickland had no children).

... Or, if I create a new wife: Elizabeth Unknown, will the process allow me to replace motherhood in one 10-checkbox step?

From some of the above discussion, it sounds like another Elizabeth Loreen wife of a correct Matthew Strickland of Maryland already exists, or does her correct immigrant Matthew need to be created, too?

Moving on to using King's work to help sort out the skipped generation of Mathew, this is at present a daunting task, so I thought that I had better take it slow, and handling the wife seems like the most reasonable place to start. This is also going to affect the Biography on Mathew the Tailor's profile: relegating Elizabeth Loreen as a separate and distinct wife of a different Matthew Strickland in the narrative.

[King] King, Forrest. Descendants of Mathew Strickland (1648-1696) through Four Generations. Undated. Accessed 5 Aug 2020.