The fascinating blog of the NEHGS, vita-brevis.org |
Vita Brevis (the blog of the New England Historic and
Genealogical Society, located at vita-brevis.org) has recently posted a number
of fascinating articles about the correction of family trees – information that’s
been accepted as correct, sometimes for many generations, that proves to be
incorrect under further scrutiny. I don’t
know how common this is, but I expect it’s pretty prevalent. In my own case, the act of putting my
genealogy under the microscope resulted in multiple changes to the accepted “common
wisdom”. There were various reasons for
these changes – willful misdirection, confusing records and accepted published
histories that are changed due to scholarly review are all causes of changes to
my own published genealogy. I’ll start
with the most compelling of these
circumstances: willful misdirection!
False histories
As I mentioned in my March 26, 2017 entry, “How I Make Use
of Internet Information”, some people who draw up their family histories “pad”
their trees with historical figures.
It’s not a new phenomenon.
In the early 20th century, there was a wave of publishing of
family histories, many of which were well researched and documented. Unfortunately, some authors were less
attentive to detail and more speculative and produced less reliable histories. Additionally, there was a cottage industry that
provided family historians with false connections to nobility or other
historical figures. People who appeared
credible would offer their information for a fee and the information would then
become incorporated into the published histories.
These histories, a century later, are transcribed into
online family trees with the incorrect information intact. Others then link to those trees or take the
information to include in their own online trees. This is a way in which fiction becomes
accepted as fact.
Woolley Hall, ancestral family home of the Woodruff family of Poole, England but not my ancestral home! |
I encountered exactly this situation in researching my own
family history. When I went online to do
an early search for Woodruff family information, I found several websites
hosted by Woodruff heirs with detailed trees.
A few ended with our immigrant ancestor, Matthew Woodruff from
Farmington, Connecticut. Others
connected him directly to nobility as the son of Sir David Woodroffe of Poyle,
Wooley [sic], England. The Woodroffes of
Wooley have a long and fascinating noble history, back to Magna Carta barons
and royalty. I was excited to see this
work all laid out and done for me already – I just had to transfer it to my
chart! Case closed!
Some time later I was able to locate a copy of a Woodruff
family history published by my own ancestor in 1925. Frederick Orr Woodruff, my
great-great-grandfather, worked with George N. MacKenzie on the Woodruff
history at the same time that MacKenzie was also working on volume III of his Colonial Families of the United States of
America. Frederick paid a man who
claimed to be an English cousin for information making the connection mentioned
above, referred him to MacKenzie and prepared to include it in his own family
history. After MacKenzie’s volume III
was published (with this noble connection included), Frederick determined,
through extensive and expensive correspondence with English genealogists, that
the information was false. He wrote
about it in the forward to his family history and it was not included in the
publication.
MacKenzie’s book, however, had far more reach and can be
found more easily, even today. So the
false connection is published and accessible in a credible genealogical history
from almost 100 years ago and is, therefore, accepted by many today as
fact. It is included, in good faith, in
online trees and the false connection is shared further.
The lesson I took away from this was the basic lesson I
learned long ago in college about any type of academic research: when you find
a data point that you plan to use in order to draw a broader conclusion, you
must verify that data point. This lesson
applies here as: when you find something in print or online that furthers your
family history, particularly with connection to some important person, you
should perform some basic, often common sense, validation of the data or even
the source. See my previous blog entry
for more detail on this topic of validation.
Mixed records
Besides the acceptable / trusted sources I have mentioned in
my prior post, another valid source of information is contemporaneous
recollections of individuals. This example shows how such a recollection was a key
factor in my decision to dig deeper into a confusing series of records.
In keeping with my own advice, I decided to take Frederick Orr
Woodruff’s family history and validate the information, as he did not provide
much in the way of supporting citations.
In doing so, I uncovered another Woodruff mystery. One of my ancestors was named Noah Woodruff,
from Southington, CT, a town near Farmington, CT, which was the origination
point for the family. Noah had a number
of children, although the specific son, David Woodruff, from whom we descend
was not found in the records. I then
consulted a more comprehensive Woodruff history, published by Susan Woodruff
Abbott in 1963. She indicated that this individual
was an amalgamation of two Noah Woodruffs, born about the same time, one in
Farmington and one in Southington, nearby towns. Both the histories showed our line through
the Southington Noah, but there was no proof, and, in fact, some evidence that
Noah of Southington didn’t pass the Woodruff name on. (Timlow’s Ecclesiastical
History of Southington specifically
states that Noah Woodruff’s male line ended at his death.) So now what?
My great-great grandfather, Frederick Orr Woodruff |
Frederick’s family history had a note from the author
addressing the lack of a birth record for Noah’s son, David Woodruff. He stated (and I have since confirmed) that
the church records for the date of his birth are missing. However, he provides a contemporaneous
recollection of David and his father Noah, which validates the connection:
“I know from my grandfather, Hiram Woodruff, son of David,
that Hiram’s grandfather was Noah Woodruff and that Noah had a son named
Roswell, who was my grandfather’s uncle and with whom he was on intimate
terms. There is no denying the facts of
this record of Noah Woodruff, as it is Family
History.” (Emphasis his)
Because Frederick’s grandfather had spoken about his own
grandfather named Noah, there’s a compelling argument that Noah really was in
the line, despite published statements that Noah’s line ended. This caused me to scrutinize the other Noah
from Farmington and attempt to sort the two of them out.
I had quite a time distinguishing between the two Noahs
(this will be the topic of another blog post).
I was able to ascertain that my line, in fact, descends from the
Farmington Noah whose history is not included in Frederick’s history and is not
connected to our line in Susan Abbott’s history, both of which have published
the incorrect descent from the Southington Noah. Like the Southington Noah, the Farmington
Noah was a descendant of the immigrant ancestor, Matthew Woodruff, but through
a different son. This meant wiping out
the original connection, which has been accepted for more than 100 years. It also meant removing all the fascinating
lineage from their wives. I have since inserted
the new line, adding a generation in the process, and have begun the research
into the new spousal lines. This is
still a work in process.
Accepted history that’s later revised
My great-great grandmother, Elizabeth McLellan Gould (Rowland) |
Hester Rowland Harrington (Stow), named after an ancestor I removed from the tree. |
Finally, one more instance of bad information finding its
way into the record can be demonstrated by a family history written by my
great-great-grandmother, Elizabeth McLellan Gould, wife of Lyman Sibley Rowland. She laid out, in this history, her Mayflower
roots through several lines. One line,
through Isaac Allerton, proved to be correct when I traced the records back and
obtained the proofs I needed. The other
line, however, through Francis Cooke proved to be incorrect. She indicated that her ancestor, Jacob
Mitchell, was the son of Experience Mitchell and Jane Cooke. Jane Cooke was the daughter of the Mayflower Francis
Cooke and Hester Mayhew. (My grandmother’s
sister Hester was named for this connection.)
It turns out that Jacob Mitchell, our ancestor, was not the
son of Jane Cooke with the Mayflower connection. My g-g-grandmother didn’t make it up, though
– in 1915, when she wrote her history, it was accepted that Jane Cooke was the
mother of all of Experience Mitchell’s children. It was only later in the 20th
century that Experience’s marriage and children were examined in more detail
and it was determined that he was actually married two (or possibly three)
times. Only his first two or three
children were from his marriage with Jane Cooke. The rest, of whom my ancestor was one, were
from his second marriage to Mary, whose surname is not known (or even the possible
third marriage). This left me with a
brick wall on her side and it wiped out the long-held family belief that we had
a Mayflower connection through Francis Cooke.
Chart I created to show the remaining, proven, Mayflower connection. This page shows the first three generations. |
Takeaway
Not to put too fine a point on it, but it is imperative that
you look at every source, even those from your own family (particularly those!)
as critically as possible and prove the data yourself. Pay particular attention to connections you
find with important personages and noble lines.
Finally, please, for the sake of future generations of genealogists in
your family, keep track of the documentation!
Scan it, take a screen shot or a photo with your phone and SAVE IT! I’ll address my methods for saving records
and how to organize them in a future post.
Sources:
The New England Historical and Genealogical Register. Boston, MA: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1847-. (Online database: AmericanAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2001-2013.) v. 127 (1973), pp. 94-95; https://www.americanancestors.org/DB202/i/11718/94/23501729
The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England 1620-1633, Volumes I-III. (Online database: AmericanAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2010), (Originally Published as: New England Historic Genealogical Society. Robert Charles Anderson, The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England 1620-1633, Volumes I-III, 3 vols., 1995). pp. 1270-1273; https://www.americanancestors.org/DB393/i/12107/1273/23895632
George N. Mackenzie, George S. Stewart, and Frederick O.
Woodruff, Matthew Woodruff of Farmington,
Conn. 1640-1 and Ten Generations of His Descendants, together with Genealogies
of Families connected through Marriage, 1925.
Elizabeth McLellan Gould Rowland, The Gould-Chase Book, Material for Family History Gathered During
Thirty Years, 1915, three copies made.
Photos:
From my personal collection and:
Vita Brevis, the blog of the New England Historic and
Genealogical Society: vita-brevis.org
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