Talk:Thomas Welles

Ancestry
On Sarah Palin's connection:

Ancestry.com was only printing the research results of three leading genealogical authorities: Tom Brown, William Reitwiesner, and Gary Boyd Roberts. All three researchers cited birth, death and census records, as permissible by law, pointing back to accepted printed earlier genealogies.

The material was compiled by Robert Battle and Michael Hurdle, and was extracted from Mr. Battle's webpages at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~battle/palin.htm and http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~battle/heath.htm.

Extensive source documentation can be found on those webpages. --Dranster (talk) 15:21, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

If you look closely at the source documentation on the Ancestry page, it is set up in two parts. The first part consists of secondary information from derivative sources. The second part is also from secondary sources, the earliest of which dates from 1860, roughly 200 years after the error I noted. In the colonial generations, it is not possible to figure out which secondary source goes with which ancestor. You note that the three researchers involved cite birth, death and census records. Frankly, none of those cited records date to the 1660's.

My issue with this Ancestry tree isn't with the fact that it has sources. My issue is that the links to Gov. Thomas Welles are incorrect.

In the ahnentafal, ancestor number 3951 is Ruth Hawkins, the wife of Thomas Hart. Her parents appear as ancestors 7902 and 7903, Anthony Hopkins [sic] and Mary Welles. This is not correct. Ruth Hawkin's parents were Anthony Hawkins and his first wife, whose name is currently unknown. As his second wife, Anthony married Ann (Welles) Thompson.

I suggest that we refute this link from Ruth Hawkins to Mary Welles by citing Donna Siemiatkoski's 'The Descendents of Gov. Thomas Welles and his Wife Alice Tomes', p. 28, which shows that the children Anthony and Ann had together were Sarah, Elizabeth, and Hannah. Not Ruth. Donna cited sources here. They are: Farmington Vital Records, Farmington Church Records, and three other derivative works. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ignarp (talk • contribs) 12:35, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I haven't had any response to my posting explaining the errors in the source material on the Hawkins-Welles connection. I will again remove the information from the page. I hope my explanation is complete enough for others to permit this correction to go through. --Ignarp (talk) 01:15, 14 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Ingarp, two days is really not much time for anyone to comment, but the reason why I reverted you again is verifiability. Your arguement points to a book which at best could be called obscure. Is there any way to scan in the page in question so we can at least include it? Thanks, Markvs88 (talk) 02:00, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Markvs88 This book is already included in the list of sources on the page on Thomas Welles. It is already an early footnote on the page. What's your beef with this change? I don't see that anyone else has been held to the standard to which you are now holding me. --Ignarp (talk) 02:06, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Markvs88, try this on for size: Charles William Manwaring, "A Digest of Early Connecticut Probate Records: Hartford District, 1635-1700 (R.S. Peck & Co., 1902), AVAILABLE ON GOOGLE BOOKS IN FULL VIEW FORMAT FOR EVERYONE TO SEE:

1. pages 208-209, the estate of Anthony Howkins names his wife as Ann. A daughter Ruth is listed among his children. In fact, Ruth's husband Thomas Hart continuously petitions the court to receive Ruth's share of the estate. Ergo, Anthony had a daughter named Ruth who married Thomas Hart. This is the part of the ahnentafel with which I completely agree.

2. page 324, the estate of Ann Howkins. It lists two of the children of Anthony Howkins: Hannah and Elizabeth. It does not list any of the older children of Anthony Howkins. Ergo the other children of Anthony Howkins were not Ann's children but the children of his first wife who died 12 July 1655 in Windsor (Barbour index to vital records citing the Report to the Colony p. 160).

I would also comment that Ruth's birth record appears in the report of the town of Windsor to the colony of Connecticut. The date is in 1646. Ann Thompson married Anthony Howkins in 1656, when Ruth Howkins was about ten years old. At that marriage, Anthony moved to Farmington and managed the property where Ann lived.

I will remove the Palin error tomorrow. Although my first posting did not receive an answer in two days, I do notice that my second posting got an answer in minutes.

--Ignarp (talk) 02:39, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I have written a newsletter column for the Welles Family Association about the error in the Hawkins ancestry. That newsletter article is available online at:

http://www.gis.net/~bmathews/index_files/news10-11.pdf

I am finding the process of explaining this simple error to be much more difficult than I would have dreamed possible. I have removed the Sarah Palin connection once again. When I do this, people seem to rush to reconnect her. I am disappointed as I feel that personal politics seems to be overdriving an effort at genealogical scholarship here.

This is where I will leave it. If other editors of this page wish to add Sarah Palin as a descendant, I will let them go forward with this action. I do want to point out, however, that I am the official paid genealogist of the Welles Family Association. My research and analysis has been accepted for connections to a great many people on this Descendants list. Why it is not accepted by the other editors for this one error mystifies me.

--Ignarp (talk) 13:03, 14 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi. The problem here is really not in explaining the error (and it's not "personal politics" - you should assume good faith). The problem is that Wikipedia relies on references from "reliable" mainstream sources (see WP:RS), not on truth, and not on individual editors' reasoning. And if you can not find such sources to support your assertions, then you can not add them (even if you are correct). So if an editor finds something that they have personally researched and can personally argue is incorrect, they can not add their own reasoning to an article, as that would constitute original research (see WP:OR), which is not allowed. On occasions that is unfortunate, but we just cannot accept individual editors' personal assertions as to their own authority - if we did that, we would have to accept everything claimed by people with much less honesty and integrity than your good self. What you would need is to get your own research noticed and quoted correctly by a source that is acceptable according to WP:RS, and then you could reference that source and correct the text. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 13:14, 14 August 2010 (UTC)


 * As a further comment, I've reverted your removal again, as it is necessary to gain a consensus here *before* you make a contested change, rather than engage in an edit war. Also, please note I have not offered an opinion on the issue itself, but when I have a little time I will examine it and offer an opinion here. I think what we need is to make a proposal here to remove the "Sarah Palin" connection, and then seek opinions based on Wikipedia policy - if we gain a consensus to remove the claimed connection, we can remove it then, but not before. I'll be happy to start that process later. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 13:25, 14 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Thank you, Boing! said Zebedee, you took the words out of my mouth. Ignarp, please understand that I'm not questioning your logic nor your sincerity. Can we agree to keep the discussion open for one week? That is, 12PM EST on 21 August 2010 so that there is plenty of time for people to weigh in on the subject. Markvs88 (talk) 14:34, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I apologize for any transgressions I have made against Wikipedia etiquette. I'd like the record to be correct. I'll await the outcome of the group process in one week. --Ignarp (talk) 17:23, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I am quite satisfied that the change Ignarp proposes is based on acceptable and available published genealogical research, as cited, and not upon the editor's personal unpublished research or opinion. The "tree" on which the Palin connection is based was itself based on less reliable older derivative (secodary) compilations, which failed to recognize that Anthony Hawkins, father of Ruth Hawkins, Governor Palin's ancestor, was married twice. Ruth, the daughter of an unknown first wife, was born ten years before Anthony's marriage to Mary Welles, and so the cited tree by Battle and Hurdle is incorrect in listing her as Ruth's mother and connecting Ruth to the Welles line through her. This is so evident from the sources cited by Ignarp that I fail to see the basis for any controversy. These things happen in genealogy, and when errors are found and corrected in respected publications, it is seldom that anyone wants to perpetuate further the original misattributions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mayflies (talk • contribs) 02:55, 15 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Sorry it's taken me longer than I'd hoped to contribute, but I've had a look now. Firstly, I just want to say that it looks like Ignarp has done some careful investigation here, and I don't personally doubt the conclusions - even if I can't see the sources myself. But what really struck me (which I didn't spot at first, and which Mayflies has also pointed out), is that we have no reliable source to say that Sarah Palin is a descendant of Thomas Welles in the first place! All we have is a user submission to the RootsWeb message boards - and anyone can add any old rubbish they want there (I'm an experienced amateur genealogist myself and I've seen plenty of major errors in people's posted genealogies - and I've even seen some that were completely fictitious). So yes, I agree with Ignarp, that the Palin claim should be removed, as it should never have been there in the first place. (I see someone has actually removed it again without waiting for the discussion here to complete, but I'll leave it at that for now, as it looks like we may well be building a consensus to delete). -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:41, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

It looks like we have reached a consensus. I will remove the Sarah Palin connection today or tomorrow and see if the removal keeps in place.

I did go carefully over the posted Ancestry family tree for Sarah Palin last week to see if I could find another connection. I thought I had one, but found another error, this time in placing the wife in the wrong family entirely. I'll keep this connection on my radar and, if another correct line pops up, I'll publish it. --Ignarp (talk) 12:56, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I did look at this again a few days ago but I guess my addition didn't add. Anyway, I agree that it is not a valid source and the removal is correct. Markvs88 (talk) 13:39, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Being a frequent contributor to Thomas Welles' page, I would also agree with Ignarp that Sarah Palin should be removed as a descendant. The original is full of errors. Dranster (talk) 16:19, 29 August 2010 (UTC)