Add your spurious pedigree info!

You would need to prove it. Shoemaker was not a prestige occupation, nor did it require literacy: and he was of a prestigious family & well educated. Think it through some more. :)

Erica Howton

I know and you're absolutely right. 😊 I was also, just considering the German schooling and vocational training system (which I am familiar with), as well as the Puritan, Quaker & LDS Churches tendencies to "know" a "humble and practical" vocation, as well as, their further education. Of course, I will fish around, some more, in the hopes of actually locating some sort of national archived book or documents. 😉👍🏼💖

how about this one:
;)
Jesus of Nazareth

Place of Burial: Jerusalem, Israel
Birth: circa -4
Bethlehem, Judea, Roman Empire
Death: circa 33 (29-45)
Jerusalem, Judea, Roman Empire
Immediate Family:
Biological son of Unknown father of Jesus

"Unknown father" ... just had to laugh at that one...

Cute, but expect to get flamed. :-)

As to more recent/serious research, there's this character: Nicholas Wyatt, Gent.

Many trees still list Nicholas Wyatt as a son of Rev. Haute Wyatt - but, unfortunately, he isn't. Lady Jane Finch (Rev. Wyatt's mother) applied for money for supporting the late Reverend's children in April of 1639, after getting custody for them (Archdeaconry Court of Canterbury) in October of 1638. The children listed in 1638 were:

* George, age 19,
* Edward, age 16,
* John, age 9, and
* Anne, aged 8.

(There is some question as to whether George or Edward was the older, but they were both in their late teens.)

Since there is no Nicholas on the list, Q.E.D.

Where I think he *did* come from is Devonshire. There were several Wyatt families in Devonshire at this period, and the name "Nicholas" occurs in them every few generations. He may possibly be a collateral cousin-once-removed of Capt. Nicholas Wyatt, of Prince George, whose father Anthony arrived in Virginia somewhere in the late 1620s or 1630s - from where, we don't know, but again Devonshire is a likely guess.

Alas! The spurious pedigree for my ancestor, Dr. Philip Reade, Sr. is still around

For example, quoted here:

Some Temple pedigrees: A Genealogy of the known descendants of Abraham Temple, who settled in Salem, Mass, in 1636 ... Added genealogies of Temple families connected by marriage with the foregoing, viz: Eames, Case, Welch, Kellum, Campbell, Wilson, Hiatt, Spray, Cook, Tredway and Murdock. Levi Daniel Temple. Printed by D. Clapp & son, 1900 - 316 pages. Page 114

https://books.google.com/books?id=ZSxWAAAAMAAJ&lpg=PA114&ot...

No, he is not from the Reade's of Maidenhall (sounds grand). McCracken liked him as son of Jacob "the waterman" of London & a Huguenot girl, but couldn't prove it.

At least the juicy blaspheming imprisonment is true.

Private User your area is really hard! Was she connected to a grand sounding family?

A more recent one: Robin Williams:

Robin Williams

Laura McLaurin Williams

Many online trees show his maternal grandfather as Robert Forrest Smith (1889-1968). However, Laura (Janin) Williams was Robert F. Smith’s stepdaughter. Her biological father was Robert Armistead Janin (1901-1965).

From "Notes on Robin Williams' Ancestry" by Christopher C. Child at _Vita Brevis_:

“One online tree indicates Laura Berry married Robert Janin in New Orleans on 6 December 1921 and then married Robert Smith on 2 September 1929 in Jackson, and that Robert Smith adopted his step-daughter…[this] is consistent with Mrs. Williams’s obituary and census information. Robert Janin is living with his cousin in 1930 (listed as single), although in the 1940 census he is listed as divorced and living in New Orleans.”

http://vita-brevis.org/2014/08/notes-robin-williams-ancestry/#more-...

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Janin-9

Long story short: turns out Robin Williams is not my double-fourth cousin.

The Wests of West Point, Virginia are attached to many spurious pedigrees, which is not surprising. They are descendants of the Boleyn and Howard families among others (and perhaps Henry VIII, according to some historians). The State of Delaware was named after Thomas West, 3rd Lord Delawarr.

But most Wests are not related to this family....the West DNA Project has 42 different unrelated groups (so far!),and many of them are in Virginia.

http://web.utk.edu/~corn/westdna/west5.htm

Today I looked at one member of this family, Col. John West of West Point, Virginia...
...as of today, on Geni...Col. John has "children" who were born in New Hampshire and Rhode Island, as well as other questionable children.

Sadly, the will of Col. John was lost, but these are the children shown in _Adventures of Purse and Person_:

• John West III, married Judith Armistead.
• Thomas West, married Agnes (?)
• Nathaniel West, married Martha Woodard, widow of Gideon Macon.
• Anne West, married Henry Fox.

One more son of Col. John is also documented in historical records:

• Captain John West, son of Col. John West and Cockacoeske

Boddie adds one more, UNITY who married Col. William Dandridge, but she was the daughter of Nathaniel, shown above.

Here is another reference re: the children of John West and Unity Croshaw:

"The heirs of Col. West were named in his last will which has long been lost in the records of the county of King and Queen but are found in other records and were: John West, son and heir; Thomas West and Nathaniel West, and a daughter, Ann, who married Henry Fox." (Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 1, page 424; vol. II, page 338)
http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/WEST/1998-01/0884066069

If you count the two profiles for Thomas West and Agnes ____ as one child, then there are no less than five spurious children on the profile as it appears today. (The second Thomas also looks iffy, as there are now two sons named Thomas listed on Col. John's Wikipedia page...the second was added to Wikipedia somewhat recently, and matches one of the Thomas profiles here at Geni.)

I've just sent a message to the profile managers of Col. John, but wow...five or six spurious children on one profile!

Col John West, II

I have not looked at the other members of this family (and I'm going to try not to look until I have more time, lol).

Also re: this Col. John, he is said by some secondary sources to have had other children with Cockacoeske (aka the "Queen" of the Pamunkies), who are sometimes termed the "Indian Wests" or the "Pamunkey Wests." However, Geni is only showing one son for her at this time--Captain John West--who appears to be well-documented, as the son of Cockacoeske, not necessarily as the son of Col. John West. Histories often simply refer to him as "son of an English Colonel," but it is generally assumed that this means Col. John West.

Amy Nordahl Cote, just looking at the timeline shows that there are spuriou(s) children, like born by mother at age 52.

That's another good "red flag."

John Seymour- according to most accounts the progenitor of the Seymour family in America was the son of Edward Seymour (notorious headless traitor) and his first wife Katherine Fillol. However because of allegations of adultry between his wife and father he was disowned. Allison Weir gives full credit to his being the true son after all. One account has him dying ,unmarried, in the Tower of London. However, some early accounts of John Seymour (or Seamer) maintain that he was just a common man and lists no parentage for him at all.Conspiracy? Or just bad bookkeeping? I prefer to think great x 11 Grandpa was the oldest son of Edward Seymour K.G

Lady Mary Howard- Thank you dear cousin Erica for reminding me that Allison Weir also buys into the Henry VIII connection, I reallly hope that that one can be put to bed as I DO NOT want to be related to the Bluebeard of England.

:):) Henry Vlll is up there with "complicated" monarchs, isn't he. Not one of my favorites either.

If he's Catherine Carey's father, he's my 15th ggf. Still--this many generations out, the chances of our sharing any DNA are almost zero.

It is possible Thomas Hungerford, of Hartford is my 9th great grandfather. His ancestry is not known, but that didnt stop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustave_Anjou from inventing one.

From * http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/HUNGERFORD/1996-06/08... " I have a family history (Reference FHL# 0908084, item# 5) of the Hungerfords compiled by Gustave Anjou. He supports the  theory that our Thomas was the son of John Hungerford, MP and Elizabeth Hungerford. He also did a family history on the Huntingtons--and was exposed as a fraud by a Huntington family organization. ..."

The archived thread demonstrates exactly what Wikipedia described: some authentic documents & a bunch of gobblety gook about "family connections."

Anjou claimed that Thomas Hungerford, of Blackland disappeared after 1636 - just the right time to show up in Hartford & help found the town. And indeed he did leave Cadenham -- because he inherited his uncle's farm in Blackland, where his widow was still living in 1680.

Unfortunately Anjou's fraudulent report is still in circulation. I heard of it just now from a reputable family association for example. So something I take away as a learning point is to remember it's not that hard anymore to check wills from England for ourselves, and add them to the Geni profiles ....

As to the Hungerfords, they were fairly prolific, and over the centuries a lot of younger sons sort of "got lost" off the family records. It makes tracking them difficult.

"Laird of Loch Lynn" and His Descendants

The very title is proven false by document extracts at the National Records of Scotland and by Scottish social history, etc. A loch is of course a body of water, laird is Scots for lord as in lord of a piece of land (not a Lord in the King's Court), and no one was ever called laird of a loch. Further, the title has been mistakenly attributed to the Lynns of that Ilk, who owned the minor barony of Lynn in Dalry Parish, Ayrshire, Scotland, where there is no loch at all but a Lynn Falls.

A few years ago, when I informed certain genealogists of the absence of a loch in Dalry, they quickly looked elsewhere, found Loch Linnhe in the Highlands, and decided the Lynns must have lived and held their title there.

The fake title grew out of a legend associated with an 1869 fictional work by Mary Jane Stith Upshur, which she passed off as the diary of Margaret (Lynn) Lewis. Margaret was the wife of Staunton, VA founder John Lewis and sister of Fredericksburg, VA's colonial Dr. William Lynn. The manuscript was exposed as a work of fiction in a 1948 news article in the "Richmond Times-Dispatch". One give-away is the fact that some events in the manuscript occurred AFTER Margaret's death ... but it gets worse.

An 1892 reprint of the manuscript in a NC historical society magazine embellished the tale, adding that Margaret was "a daughter of the Laird of Loch Lynn, who was a descendant of the chiefain of a once powerful clan in the Highlands, whose heroism is so celebrated in Scottish clan legends." The truth is that no Clan Lynn or Linn, etc. is found in any reputable published list or history of Scottish clans, and the only Scottish legends of Lynns relate to persons who lived not in the Highlands of Scotland, but in the Lowlands.

Unfortunately, "Laird of Loch Lynn" and even "born in Loch Lynn" subsequently were associated with Scottish Lynns who lived in Ireland in the 17th century and carried over to the Virginia family. I know there's been a modern fad of water births, but born in a loch?

" ... born in a loch?"

That made me chuckle!

I have an ancestor frozen in a lake, is that at all similar? There's a mural to him in a community center in Arkansas.

There are many 'Noble' surnames that are associated with a particular or specific body of water owned or controlled by a that family.

Such as the Italian Noble family 'de Soppe' from Zadar (Dalmatia), whom founded 'Zadar' Switzerland. Many variables include, Soppe, Zoppe, Suppe, Zuppe, Sobbe, Zobbe, Sobben, Soppen, etc. In this case, the Soppen of Switzerland took ownership of a lake, naming it after their dynastic surname, 'Soppen' adding 'See' at the end of the name, simply implying pond or lake, as in 'Soppen-see' (Soppensee).

I appreciate that Thomas. However, being associated with a body of water is not the same as holding title to it, and Scotland had very different customs from Italy. I've spent 35+ years studying the Lynns of Ayrshire (and all of Scotland actually) in abbey registers, parish registers, Commissary Court records, Acts of the Privy Council, the National Records of Scotland website, records at scotlandspeople.gov.uk, books by 19th-century Scottish historians, publications of the Ayrshire and Galloway Archaeological Association, etc., etc. In fact, I have 105 different sources just for Ayrshire, and I've documented nearly five centuries of history for the Lynn family in question ... and not once were they or any Scottish family referred to as "of Loch Lynn".

Wow, an ancestor frozen in a lake! Maybe that's what happened to a lot of our "missing links".

Amy Nordahl Cote I'm very green with respect to genealogy and geni, but I've been dumbfounded at source inconsistency with respect to John's brother Francis West and his offspring--Francis whose will clearly distinguishes sons maternity away from Jane Davye-- but that hasn't seemed to conclusively trouble the waters much at Geni yet.

Moreover, that same West Family DNA project pulled the rug out from scattered hints and narratives I've received from family lore--as theoretical Francis Wests of Duxbury, those related to S.Soule, Reeves etc have all been seemingly disconnected from my perfect yDNA match ancestor Francis West of 1725/6... back to the drawing board!

Thomas Jenkins, Maryland colonist, probably of Welsh origin, claimed by fanciful genealogies dating back to at least the 19th century to have been the son of one "William Jason Jenkins", said to be an officer in the Royal Navy and brother to Sir Lionel (or "Leoline") Jenkins, who was an Admiralty judge--but he's also claimed to be from Anglesey; Sir Leoline Jenkins was from Glamorgan in South Wales (which is about 150 miles away) and his only known brother was called Jevan, and no "William Jason Jenkins" is attested in any contemporary documents (nor would one expect him to be; the only people I've encountered in the time period of c. 1600-1650 with middle names were women named after Charles I's wife Henrietta Maria).

Steven: When the DNA evidence doesn't match the paper trail, it's time to recheck the paper trail. As often as not you will find some mistake(s) somewhere.

More bogosity that keeps popping up in amateur genealogies (not necessarily due to the work of elaborate genealogical fraudsters like Anjou): Thomas Willis, Virginia colonist, appears with regularity in the trees of amateur genealogists as son of Sir Richard Willis, of Horningsey and Fen Ditton, Cambridgeshire, and his wife Jane Henmarsh. Sir Richard Willis and Jane Henmarsh did have a son called Thomas, but he was a Royalist officer who was made a baronet, and died in England. Thomas Willis' wife is also frequently given the surname "Wilde", and parents of "John Wilde" and "Ann Honeywood"; ths is more confabulation with the Ann Wyld, daughter of Sir John Wyld and Ann Honywood, who married Sir Thomas Willis Bt.

George Beckwith, Maryland colonist, frequently claimed to have been born at "Featherstone Castle" in Yorkshire (which doesn't exist) and christened in 1606, and to've been the son of a Thomas Beckwith and Barbara Milburn. There's no evidence to support the identification or presumed filiation, but that hasn't stopped it from being repeated as fact in a variety of untrustworthy sources (D'Angerville's "Living Descendants of Blood Royal", for one).

Richard Gardiner, of St. Mary’s, Maryland colonist, has been given a thoroughly spurious pedigree that makes him the son of a "Sir William Gardener" and traces back to a William Gardner who married the bastard daughter of Jasper Tudor, Duke of Richmond.

Helen Tudor is also claimed as mother of Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, Lord Chancellor (disproved)