Thomas Essman - Thomas Essman born 1934, "son of John and Nancy Essman...

1934 is a typo - should be 1834

@Jon Brees Thogmartin - 4 of the 8 smart matches for this profile were from David Hatfield's file on MyHeritige and the other 4 look like they were copied from David's file also. Two problems - 1) David was ignorant about the Essman family he was an indirect part of and 2) David is dead now and nobody is taking care of his file on MyHeritige. If there was someone taking care of the file or if David were still alive this file would be corrected according to the information I have shared with you here that David didn't know nor will his successor when one comes along. it grieves me that this and other errors are allowed to exist and nobody here is smart enough to recognize the truth when it's right before them with the good sense to make the changes being offered. I get it that a curator "doesn't make those kinds of changes" but you have rushed to declare the profiles in this tree to where you are the only one who can make changes and for some unexplained reason you are seem hell bent on locking his tree down so it cannot be edited with all the mistakes in it I have pointed out to you.

Private User

Throgmartin isn't around much any more, and all the Curators have a very heavy workload. It can take years to get something changed, unless you spell it out for them in detail with as much documentation as you can possibly find.

You're on the right track for that, Mr. Essman, but a bit more tact - and patience - would go a long way. (Says the pot to the kettle - I'm not all that tactful *or* patient myself.)

Thank you once again, Ms. Blejer and Ms. Helms,and "touche'" Ms. Helms. I'm an ignorant old guy from Arkansas and I only know one way to say something - that's straight out. I sent Mr. Thogmartin about 20 messages and the other profile managers got about 5 each and I got not one single reply. Up to then I was pretty patient and tactful but I reached a point when I thought it was time to raise the volume.

@Hatte Anne Blejer and @Maven B. Helms, @Leanne Minny, Mr. Thogmartin has added a wife, a father, and a grandfather, for which he has absolutely no justification or documentation for Thomas Thomas Essman. Is there any chance we can get those removed?

With all due respect, Mr. Thogmartin does not appear to be the right person to be managing this Essman tree. He clearly has no understanding for the family and you cannot manage this family without knowing it pretty well. He has inserted people into the family that do not belong. It is a very small family with only about 500 households in the U. S. today, was in the path of the action of The Civil War with all the record destruction and there is little room for mistakes which are very easy to make. Four of the people he has inserted into the tree for which there is no justification or documentation is the wife of Thomas ESSMAN, Frances BOYTON Frances Boyton Johannas ESSMAN Johannas Essman as father of Thomas, and Charles ESSMAN Charles Essman as father of Johannas, and Thomas ESSMAN, Thomas Essman son of John and Nancy JOHNSON ESSMAN. John and Nancy likely did have a son named Thomas but the one added as a son of John and Nancy ESSMAN is not their son. He is likely to be a grandson but not their son as shown above in my opening comments on this profile and substantiated by docs I posted in the Media Section of this discussion.

The other two "managers" of John Essman John Essman are likewise not familiar enough with the family to be managing it. One of them, Deborah Booth, submitted this tree and I have had a long one-sided conversation with her about all this fictitious information in this Essman Tree that she submitted. She has made most of the changes I suggested to her in her own tree but has failed to make a single one of them to this Geni tree which makes me believe that she either needs help, motivation, or the entries that need changing have been locked down so she can't. The three changes I suggested to her that she hasn't made is where Thomas Essman Thomas Essman was born, and died. We have no information about his wife's name or where he was born but he didn't die in McMinnville, Warren County, TN - he died in McMinn County, TN prior to Dec 10, 1824. She also has failed to eliminate the Thomas Essman who she shows as being the son of John and Nancy Essman as discussed above in my original discussion about this Thomas. Is there any possibility those changes can be made so this tree gains some credibility as opposed to how it is now?

I think Private User was on recently, but Private User is correct, he's rarely on Geni nowadays. I worked with him years ago.

I would say begin cleaning up your family and ask for help here from expert users like Maven and from curators.

Keep your posts to one discussion thread. You'll get faster and better responses that way.

We can help detach profiles but you should be the one adding information, with our guidance if necessary.

It's also possible to use a tool called Smart Copy to copy from a site like Ancestry, if there are good trees over there.

@Hatte Anne Blejer and @Maven B. Helms, @Leanne Minny, I apologize for being such a pain in the neck but surely you must be able to see from the information I have given you that I am not the problem here. I would like to be part of this and lend to it what I can but I simply will not be associated with something as messed up as my family tree is here in its current state unless I can be assured of having a shot at changing it. I'm not a perfectionist and am fully aware of the fact that at the very best we're all going to make and repeat errors, and have omissions which are out of our control but when the people in charge of ascertaining as much accuracy as possible, given the odds of the situation, start arbitrarily making up names to go into a tree, it needs to come to the attention of someone who more clearly understands the goals in common here. I'm never intentionally being a pain in anyone's neck but ridiculous is ridiculous regardless of who points it out. I apologize for taking up so much of your time with the caveat that you're not compelled to listen to anything I've said but obviously you're in sympathy with my cause or we wouldn't be talking about it and I comment you for that and for everything else that you do for the good of the eventual outcome. We apparently have a great deal in common. Thank you.

Okay, I have moved John 1837 and Thomas 1834 to a TBD Essman father and Patsy Essman mother.

TBD Essman is attached to Private and wife as their son.

I have cut and paste your comments into the Overviews of John 1837 and Thomas 1834.

I have added a sister Eliza.

I have detached Johannas Essman and put a Curator's Note on Private to the effect that his parents are unknown.

I have a busy Friday and weekend, but if you leave comments like the one you have above with census evidence, dates, names, etc. either I or one of the others in the discussion can assist you in making the corrections.

@Hatte Anne Blejer, I haven't found a good tree on Ancestry. There needs to be a way to stop the flow of information from David Hatfield's tree in MyHeritage. It seems to be the source of most of the errors I see in the Geni tree. He died a few months ago and there's nobody managing his tree there and for some reason when you call in the "Smart matches" from MyHeritage you get several instances of his file show up. He was my 1st cousin but he was a Navy brat and never lived closer to the family in Arkansas than the east coast. He lived in a small town in SC and had no resources but online and he grabbed all his information from online and didn't have the ability to discriminate fact from fiction so he just lumped in everything he could find and while it looks impressive with a lot of names, etc., there were as many mistakes as there was valid information and now he's dead and his file is sitting there haunting the family and contributing a lot of mistakes to the cause.

@Hatte Anne Blejer, the problem is that I have no way to prove that those entries that were added by the manager without documentation are phony. There is no proof that those people don't belong in there, only proof that they do and there's none of that either. So, once a manager decides to put a name in a slot and makes up a profile all without doc then it's all over, right? I thought that was the whole purpose of doc, to prove something was right since there is no doc if it's wrong??

@Hatte Anne Blejer, thank you for making those changes while I was writing more. LOL Sorry. I really don't intend to be a jerk. It's just that I've put in just under 50 years with my head poked up under the hood of a microfiche reader gasping for air with heavy smokers sitting on either side of me, etc., and it really gets me up when I see this kind of stuff in this tree and can't get a response out of anyone.

One further request, please Hatte, don't leave Frances Boyton as Thomas' wife. There's absolutely no evidence of that. I have nobody to add to the tree in those slots. I've never seen a single reference to a name for Thomas' wife, father, or anyone above that.

William Eugene Essman, Sr -- I have been making your family profiles Master Profiles but not locking the data fields. Making them Master Profiles and adding good Overviews and Curator's Notes, where warranted, will help prevent people from merge bad duplicates into the tree. Later, we can field lock, when you have completed the research and the dates and locations are known, ideally sourced with evidence, and complete.

Re: "I have no way to prove that those entries that were added by the manager without documentation are phony" --

Master Profiles with locked relationships and fields can help prevent errors in the future. Even if there is no documentation, if you provide notes for the Overview as to the informal source of the information, that will help.

I understand being annoyed at finding a tree you know well being undocumented with a lot of errors. I work on quite a few family trees simultaneously and for many of them, I am the expert and have good sources, so it annoys me when people mess them up.

I will Geni divorce Frances Boyton from Thomas.

You can read about Master Profiles here: http://help.geni.com/entries/20385782-What-is-a-Master-Profile-

Any curator can designate a profile to be a Master Profile (MP). MPs can have their relationships or fields locked. There can be a Curator's Note at the top of the profile, in Profile View. And importantly, only curators can merge MPs.

If fields or relationshps are locked, any curator can unlock them, given a reasonable request by a Geni user.

To request that a profile be made an MP, go here: https://www.geni.com/discussions/83475

It is best to first get the tree into good shape with dates / locations and if possible, an Overview and sources. Sources can be just links in the Overview or they can be text in the Overview, like the 1850 Federal Census in Thomas and John's Overviews. Or they can be attached via the Sources Tab and specific "facts" about the profile can be linked to specific sources.

The children detached when I detached Frances Boyton. I assume you want the children attached to Thomas with an unknown wife? I'll wait until I hear back.

@Hatte Anne Blejer, Including your comments here and responding;

Okay, I have moved John 1837 and Thomas 1834 to a TBD Essman father and Priscilla Essman mother.

TBD Essman is attached to Essman (1790-1846) and wife as their son.

I have cut and paste your comments into the Overviews of John 1837 and Thomas 1834.

I have added a sister Eliza.

My comment: I doubt that TBD Essman will ever be known and if so, by fluke only. There is no way to calculate when or where he died because it occurred prior to 1850 so he was never a named person and there has been no record turn up so far such as a will, death notice, etc., only that the children were orphaned upon the death of their mother signifying the prior death of the father whose last name was Essman and an inferred connection to John and Nancy by reason of close geographic proximity and the apparent simultaneous vacating of Bradley County, TN in the 1840 census. We would have TBD Essman in the 1820, 1830, and 1840 census as an unknown Essman but the age groups were changed as well as people aging and moving to another age group and by the 1850 census the family was not still one cohesive group and several of the family have yet to be identified by name not just the husband of Priscilla and father of the three orphans. The family went from 8 in 1820, 2 adults and 6 kids to 13 in 1830, with 3 adults, to 18 in 1840 with 7 adults. I have put those census numbers in a spreadsheet side by side and cannot determine when a son of theirs might have died.
Obviously, there were the parents and their younger children as well as their older children who had added younger kids to the mix, all living together in both 1830 and 1840. The odd number of adults in either 1830 or 1840 might imply a missing spouse for Priscilla but in the 1850 census John and Nancy's youngest child, Andrew Jackson Essman, 18, was still single and living with his mother making for an odd number of young adults. There was also two of their other adult children who were married and with children still living with Nancy as well.

@Hatte Anne Blejer, your comment:

The children detached when I detached Frances Boyton. I assume you want the children attached to Thomas with an unknown wife? I'll wait until I hear back.

Yes please on putting the kids with Thomas. I see that removing Frances Boyton from Thomas did not remove her from being the mother of John Essman which raises another question - how does this impact John's siblings like Margaret Essman Reeser as follows, the profile of which I am not permitted to view: Margaret Essman
Birth: estimated between 1763 and 1821
Daughter of Frances Boyton
Wife of Frederick Reeser
Sister of John Essman; William Essman; Benjamin Essman; Priscilla Essman Brown and Esther Essman Tunnell - Jon Brees Thogmartin FTDNA Mcclendon
Will Frances Boyton be removed from their profiles?

@Hatte Anne Blejer, there is a complication involving Thomas Essman regarding his parents that I want to raise with you for when you get a moment. There was a Thomas Ishmael who was awarded a land warrant of 200ac for his service in the Rev War. He chose to take that grant in Greene County, TN which is where we first find Thomas Essman involved with those four weddings of what we assume to be his children 1799 to 1807 and then John and Nancy in 1809 in Hawkins County. From the tax census of 1805:

Name: Thomas Ishmael
State: TN
County: Greene County
Township: No Township Listed
Year: 1805
Record Type: Tax list
Database: TN Early Census Index

Thomas Ishmael had two brothers Benjamin and Robert. All three of them enlisted in Chillicothe County, NC into the Army unit of a Colonel who was known to have populated about half of his unit with Hessian soldiers who had deserted when it appeared the Yanks were going to win the war. The description of the land he got was 200ac on Lick Creek that butts up to John Francisco's land. In various Greene County records there were references to a Thomas Eshman, Eshmel, etc., for jury duty and other functions but I don't ever recall seeing either a Thomas Ishmael or a Thomas Essman there but we know they were both there because of the land grant for Ishmael and for Thomas Essman due to his presence at those 4 weddings. Also present at one of the weddings, according to a book on "Early Tennessee Marriages" was a Phances Essman and a Johannas Essman. Phances was said to be a witness to that wedding but there was no further reference to Johannas and no reference to what either of their roles were in regard to the family and both only appeared that once.

It has been noted that many Hessian deserters fled into the Indian country in that region which was all NC Territory at that time, and "mixed with the Indians bringing great shame on their fellow countrymen." It is also legend that many of the deserted Hessian soldiers changed their names to appear more un-German, just as a matter of interest, Robert Ishmael was captured and died in a British Prison. Benjamin, the oldest, took his 200ac grant up in KY. Thomas Ishmael's land is very unique in that John Francisco's land was in Hawkins County which butts up to Greene County to the west. Lick Creek meanders all over the place in Greene County but there is only one place where it comes close enough to the Greene/Hawkins County borders where Thomas Ishmael's 200 acres could be. There is no possibility of there being more than one 200ac plot "on Lick Creek that butts up to John Francisco's land."

Four years after Thomas Ishmael took his grant there, and without benefit of a deed transfer of record, Thomas Essman sold 200ac on Lick Creek that butts up to John Francisco's land. Thomas Ishmael disappeared - no trace of him, no move, no death, just disappeared, confirmed by current Ishmael researchers, several with whom I have discussed this. To compound the issue, apparently Thomas Essman's son Benjamin's middle name was Ishmael. Benjamin Ishmael Essman married Darkis Cross, witnessed by Henry Cross, father of Darkis. Both families moved from Greene County, TN shortly after that marriage, to Giles County, TN where, in the 1820 census, we find Henry Cross and next door is Benjamin Ishmael - not Essman, just Benjamin Ishmael and his growing young family. It appears that he and his family moved in with Henry Cross by 1830 and do not appear by name in the census. Darkis is said to have died in 1829 and Benjamin shortly afterward so they never appeared again by name after the 1820 census. The Ishmael family have laid claim to the Benjamin in the 1820 census and to his wife Darkis Cross and they are firmly entwined in the Ishmael family genealogy as we speak and even mentioned in the will of one Shadrack Ishmael.

So, there are a few people named Essman or some variation thereof to whom I could attach Thomas as his parents but there is no trail to them from Thomas and therefore no justification for that in my mind especially in light of the fact that he may have been a Hessian deserter who gradually took on another identity and disappeared from history. All of this is another reason I am miffed at all the people who have attached a father for Thomas like Thogmartin did Johannas because with that done, all research for an answer as to what exactly happened back there on that 200ac on Lick Creek will come to a grinding halt prematurely, especially with Thogmartin adding on another layer giving Johannas a father from New Jersey named Charles. We do not know where Thomas Essman was born, or his wife or father's name, at the risk of repeating myself and further boring you to death but we do know where he died and it isn't what is on that tree at the risk of being boring. He died in McMinn County, TN not McMinnville, Warren County, TN. This issue is not settled and it may not be, ever, so to admonish me to fill in the blanks you've created by removing the fictitious names from the tree may not be something that I will be able to do, or anyone else. So, given those caveats, how would you deal with this?

William Eugene Essman, Sr Since you said in another discussion thread that you only came to Geni to prove that Internet trees were hopeless and you're leaving now because you proved it, I will bow out, unless you have decided to stay and work with us. Let us know but don't waste our time.

Anyone would be happy to help, but it's discouraging to spend an hour helping a user who says they were just trying to prove how bad all the Internet family tree sites are. In my opinion, you have put in the time to understand Geni and try it out, so your conclusion is not based on facts, rather based on trying Geni out for a few months.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/126292289/william-bradley-essman

Just to make an easy record.

@Hatte Anne Blejer,
YOU said: William Eugene Essman Since you said in another discussion thread that you only came to Geni to prove that Internet trees were hopeless and you're leaving now because you proved it, I will bow out, unless you have decided to stay and work with us. Let us know but don't waste our time.

MY response: LOL. That's not what I said nor what I meant and that's not who I am. I wouldn't waste my time trying to prove such a premise and I have no delusions of the relative importance of my role here or elsewhere in the world of online genealogy. I did express some skepticism about the end result of a "one world tree" having much accuracy in the end if my surname tree was any example of what was going in to make that final one tree. I said that only after I had sent well over 20 messages to the profile managers of the profile of John Essman and scattered about 10 unanswered discussions around on profiles within the Essman tree without any response which to that point had me convinced that nobody was interested in the accuracy of the information in that tree and I think justifiably so. That was before you intervened and before I had become uncharacteristically aggressive in my effort to get the attention of someone who was interested enough to listen to what I had to say.

YOU said: Anyone would be happy to help, but it's discouraging to spend an hour helping a user who says they were just trying to prove how bad all the Internet family tree sites are. In my opinion, you have put in the time to understand Geni and try it out, so your conclusion is not based on facts, rather based on trying Geni out for a few months.

MY reply: I joined August 4, 2015, looked around, didn't like what I saw and was not interested in swimming upstream at that time and came back only within the last two weeks and would be a fool to say that I understand everything that's going on in Geni. I did the same thing with Ancestry, 1995, MyHeritage, around 2000, and Wikitree, a few months ago. Frankly, all of them appeared to be more than I wanted to devote time to when it was immediately apparent that I would likely be fighting a loosing battle due to the errors in the Essman trees that I found in each of those sites. My time situation has altered some and I just spent the last month contacting many of the people In Ancestry with other surnames, but with the Essman tree connected to their trees, informing them of the same things I have been saying here to the people of Geni. In fact, to indicate my recognition and dedication to this cause, I will refer you to a message I posted on Ancestry about phony people at the top of the Essman tree almost 20 years ago in 2001 and I'm still saying the same thing here: https://www.ancestry.com/boards/surnames.essman/102/mb.ashx. Like everything else I say, it isn't a short message but you can get the point in a paragraph or two. I'd rather bore you with bulk than to confuse you with snippets.

I cannot possibly adequately express my appreciation for you stepping in and what you have done realizing that you've done a huge service to all the Essman people in this tree and want to thank and commend you mightily regardless of how it may or may not affect me directly. You stand alone in the genealogy wilderness that is Essman genealogy and it makes me proud to have crossed paths with you, a person with dedication, integrity, and the courage and willingness to go against the flow because what you have done to the Essman tree as it exists within the online genealogy world is absolutely oppose odds of several thousand to one and that's no small matter in my eyes. Time will prove you to have fostered a just cause and again I want to express my appreciation, not to seem melodramatic about such a small and insignificant matter in the broader scheme of things but consequential to me nonetheless.

The changes you've made to this tree are the major problems with it, along with Thomas' birth and death information that need to be changed. Otherwise most all the other issues with the file that I've seen are minor things like names and dates being off a bit, nothing like having the top capped off with arbitrarily contrived ancestors that stop or misdirect further investigation as more and more new information is added to the public knowledge bank. It is for those reasons that I'm weighing my decision to hang around in Geni or not. I am old, tired, in poor health, can't set at the computer the way I am now, way over my traditional anticipated Essman expiration date and fairly satisfied with my understanding about my family and feel like I have done about all I can to pass on good information to those who will follow me in their inquisitiveness. I have a "secret" Facebook group I started exclusively for blood relatives who are descendants of Thomas where I have made the members aware of the pitfalls of being interested in our Essman genealogy and did so in response to my assessment of the ability to overcome all the bad information that's online. In just a couple of months we're approaching 100 members and growing. What you've done to keep people from corrupting the info in the tree will go a long way in helping any true researchers so at least there'll be one instance of the tree that's accurate regardless of how many "miners" show up on Ancestry and I will know that I can recommend Geni to anyone wanting to participate online. In fact, a couple of the members of the group I began are members of Geni, maybe more I don't know about.

@Hatte Anne Beljer, I had no intention of wasting your time and don't feel as though I have because the changes that have been made were needed regardless of my existence. Is that not right? If you feel you've wasted your time with me, I'm sorry. I don't think you have considering the benefit to all the other Essman tree members.

@Erica Howton, thank you for your assistance in making the task of adding my parents simple. I sincerely appreciate it.

@Hatte Anne Beljer, please pardon me but on this profile you show that the brother of this young Thomas is "Hudson John Essman" and that may be correct but I don't know that. I have only seen him referred to as John Essman. "Hudson John" is likely to be one of the brothers of the orphan's father.

William Eugene Essman, Sr Would you consider re adding your parents and grandparents? It would make it a whole lot easier if you had the ability to edit yourself. Curators can “protect” Geni trees, but it’s “your” Genealogy.