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Dr. John Franklin Bryant - Are there two John Bryan(t)s?

Started by Karl David Wright on Sunday, June 30, 2019
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Karl David Wright PRO
6/30/2019 at 2:13 AM

A while back I was given a merge offer between a Major John Bryan and a Dr. John Franklin Bryant. They had the same exact birth and death dates, both were born in Isle of Wight County Virginia, and both died in North Carolina. But they had different wives and different parents -- and the parent relationship was locked, so I requested that the merge be undone, and now I'm sorting out the mess.

On that score, I was contacted by a descendant of the Harts, Private User , who said that I'd erred in how I'd reassigned children. Her issue is that she believes Major John Bryan married Elizabeth Joyner -- which is the Geni wife of Dr. John Franklin Bryant -- and the Harts are descended from this marriage. Is there anyone with a source that might lay this controversy to rest?

Here is the Master Profile for Maj. John Bryan:

John Bryan of Edgecombe County

Note he already has two wives and no room for a third.

Here is Dr. John Franklin Bryant:

John Bryan, of Beard’s Creek

Here's a web tree describing marriage to Elizabeth Joyner for the latter John:

https://www.myheritage.com/research/record-1-535601681-1-500229/joh...

I believe that it is Major John Bryan's birth and death dates that are incorrect in Geni, FWIW, but I haven't found Major John's actual birthdates anywhere.

Thanks in advance.
Karl David Wright PRO
6/30/2019 at 2:16 AM

Erica Howton, anything you can find, e.g. wills, would be fabulously helpful here.

Private User, any sources you can bring to bear on this would also help make your case.
Erica Howton C
6/30/2019 at 3:37 AM

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Bryan-2232

John Bryan of Edgecombe County Wives are wrong. He married Elizabeth Joyner.
Erica Howton C
6/30/2019 at 3:42 AM

https://books.google.com/books?id=4Y9H7HcW7hwC&lpg=PA147&ot... - but careful, this gets into the William of Orange “tradition.”

I’m working on a clean list of Elizabeth Joyner’s children in her profile to make drag & drop easier.
Karl David Wright PRO
6/30/2019 at 3:42 AM

Sigh.

What then to do with his wives, and with Dr. John?
Karl David Wright PRO
6/30/2019 at 4:01 AM

Ok. One problem already: see parent conflict for:

William Bryan

Two master profiles for the same parent?
Erica Howton C
6/30/2019 at 4:20 AM

I don’t know that Elizabeth Hart belongs to Elizabeth Joyner? John Bryant’s son in law was David Hopper, executor of his will.

I see this which does not describe this John Bryant:

From https://www.genealogy.com/forum/surnames/topics/hart/4923/

More About ELIZABETH BRYAN:
Fact 1: Elizabeth Bryan was the daughter of John Bryan.
Fact 2: John Bryan came from Ireland with his five brothers.
Fact 3: They settled in the "New Germany District" in North Carolina
Erica Howton C
6/30/2019 at 4:22 AM

Cut the extra wives and children loose. Only one wife, only 3 children, only 2 parents. Controversy on the mother but not your problem. :)
Erica Howton C
6/30/2019 at 4:27 AM

This John Bryan, of Beard’s Creek has too many children - Just leave as is

I only see one wife for William - Sarah Smith
Erica Howton C
6/30/2019 at 4:31 AM

Ann Barbara Smith is a different Bryan family

1. Ann Bryant was born 6 MAR 1722/23 in North Farnham Parish, Richmond Co., VA., and died ABT 1805 in Randolph County, North Carolina. She was the daughter of 2. John Bryant and 3. Anne Ellis. She married David Smith ABT 1742, son of William Smith and Mary Unknown. He was born 26 FEB 1719/20 in North Farnham Parish, Richmond Co., VA., and died 1803 in Randolph Co., N. C..
Karl David Wright PRO
6/30/2019 at 4:42 AM

Re: the John Bryan with too many children: Most of Elizabeth Joyner's children list both Johns as parents so there are parent conflicts all over the place.

Re: Ann Smith: I noticed that she was not in the right family. I also noticed that Joseph is from the same family as Ann. I can create parents for these and move them away.
Erica Howton C
6/30/2019 at 4:49 AM

There’s a source in her profile.
Erica Howton C
6/30/2019 at 4:53 AM

I’m disconnecting the extra children of Elizabeth Bryan and locking her relationships

Joseph Bryant

Elizabeth Hart

Mary Jackson

Ann Cobb

Do not belong to her & John Bryan of Edgecombe County
Erica Howton C
6/30/2019 at 4:57 AM

Private User Please don’t enter more profiles - they’ve been on Geni for many years and now it’s very confused. Add information to the profile “about” instead. Thank you.
Karl David Wright PRO
6/30/2019 at 5:00 AM

Erica Howton, thanks.
I still see Joseph Bryant as having (locked) parents as before though. Can you cut him loose entirely?
Erica Howton C
6/30/2019 at 5:10 AM

I just did.
Karl David Wright PRO
6/30/2019 at 7:13 AM

Thanks for sorting this out.
I sent a private email to TKennedy explaining the resolution here. We'll see if she responds.

Private User
6/30/2019 at 11:45 AM

Greeting all,
Have been taking time to re-evalute sources of information and deleted my recent Elizabeth entry as well as Major John Franklin Bryan.

The problem stems from too many John Bryans using the same birth/death date. One that I cannot reconcile with yet lists an Elizabeth Bryan dau of Eliz Joyner/John Bryan, married to Richard Hart. They claim Elizabeth's father is John Bryan and use the same birthdates as John of Edgecombe County. They are trying to say Elizabeth Bryan married Richard Hart, not David Hopper.

These errors are duplicated in other resources (MyHeritage, Ancestry.com).

Thanks for your contributions to the research & discussion.
Erica Howton C
6/30/2019 at 1:36 PM

Bryan(t) are very difficult and their “traditional” origin stories don’t help.

Looks like Y DNA testing is getting there but not yet:

https://www.familytreedna.com/public/Bryan?iframe=yresults

I’m not familiar with the Hart family so can’t really say anything other than Tkenndy speaks truth when she says that online trees have garbled the Bryans!
Karl David Wright PRO
6/30/2019 at 2:01 PM

Re: birth and death dates: As everyone points out, web trees attribute give pretty much every John Bryan(t) the same birth date and death date. Erica's research points to the tentative conclusion that Major John Bryan of Edgecombe County has the January 02, 1692 birthdate, but the October 31, 1741 death date frequently seen is probably the death date of Dr. John Bryant of Randolph County.
Karl David Wright PRO
6/30/2019 at 2:10 PM

About the only family more difficult than Bryan(t)s has got to be Taylors. I still have traumatic memories of stumbling into the Taylor Vortex and being completely overwhelmed with the number of unrelated Taylors of very similar names and birth years rattling around -- and web trees were completely useless because everyone had gotten people mixed up big-time. Maybe Bryan(t) is not as bad as that. ;-)
Erica Howton C
6/30/2019 at 2:48 PM

We’ve made progress on Geni on the Bryan(t) - at the tree tops, anyway - due to careful analysis and debunking of the “traditional” stories by Geni members; there are a number of excellent discussions. I’ve just gone through and relationship locked this Bryant line, it had gotten mixed up with a different one (again).

We are now facing “down tree” in the North Carolina Migration, a particular sticky wicky, as there were multiple families with similar names & dates living in close by areas, and of course —- few records. This is where on line trees have to be carefully analyzed; they should be discounted almost entirely at the immigrant generation and published articles in journals should be our source data.
Karl David Wright PRO
6/30/2019 at 3:27 PM

Good advice.
I have only oblique involvement in the Bryan(t)s at all: my only living first cousin is descended from this family when they were in North Farnham Parish, and I worked out her tree for her. I have great respect for anyone willing to sort it all out.
Erica Howton C
6/30/2019 at 11:59 PM

I don’t see that this John Bryan, of New Bern is a known child of Dr. Richard Bryant, of Stafford County

(I could be wrong ...)
Karl David Wright PRO
7/1/2019 at 12:40 AM

Yep, no idea where he came from.
Karl David Wright PRO
7/1/2019 at 12:54 AM

There are two web trees that give differing parentage. Here they are:

https://www.myheritage.com/research/record-1-303272931-1-501012/joh...

and

https://www.myheritage.com/research/record-1-443831911-1-505022/joh...

I have no idea which one, if any, is correct.
I am also unsure whether wives "Hille" and "Ellis" are indeed the same person, or if there are two different John Bryans here too.
Karl David Wright PRO
7/1/2019 at 5:54 AM

Found another non-Major-John hypothesis here:

https://www.myheritage.com/research/record-1-458855051-2-501229/joh...

I think "Hille" and "Ellis" may be the same woman simply because they seem interchangeable in the web trees for Joseph and probable sister Ann Smith. Perhaps one is a maiden name and the other is a widowed name?
Karl David Wright PRO
7/1/2019 at 7:08 AM

Ok, so I followed this RootsWeb reference:

https://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=laura%5Fforge...

Note that this family has two John Bryan(t) sons, one of which is Major John, so clearly it's not 100% to be believed. HOWEVER, when I started building this in Geni, I matched an existing profile for John Bryan b.1686, here:

John Bryan, of New Bern

If you note, this now gives this John Bryan(t) three wives. Help?? Will the real John Bryan(t) stand up please??

Another thing to note is there is a second wife for father Edward, who has a child middle-named Joyner. More confusion clearly...
Erica Howton C
7/1/2019 at 1:46 PM

Children of Christian Bryan

https://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=7213&id=I...
Erica Howton C
7/1/2019 at 2:51 PM

Ann Bryan Was the wife of John Bryan, of New Bern (son of Edward Bryan & Christina Council). He had another wife, name unknown, son James Bryan.

Detaching John Bryan, of Beard’s Creek who married Alice Bryan as son of Edward

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