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Thursday, July 2, 2020

Beginning the Mayflower Quest Part Four: On my way to the passengers


An Old Postcard By Pub. by Smith's Inc., Plymouth, Mass. Tichnor Bros. Inc., Boston, Mass. - Boston Public Library Tichnor Brothers collection #61532, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46122563

There are only two generations between my Great-grandmother, Thankful Tefft LKKM-LWN, and the 5th generation of Mayflower descendants. So, for me, the task of connecting to a Mayflower passenger is simplified by using the Silver Books. Here is the book for Francis Cooke LZ2F-MM7.

Wood, Ralph V., and Lucy Mary Kellogg. 2015. Mayflower families through five generations: descendants of the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth, Mass., December 1620. Vol. 12 family of Francis Cooke

Thankful Tefft's father was William Tefft LZBC-H9Y. I showed the sources for his parents and birthdate in the previous post in this series. However, I left that post with a need to do some more research. However, the five generations in the Mayflower series included the family of his mother, Esther Brownell LWQZ-G2B, who is actually the next person in line. So, with the inclusion of William Tefft LZBC-H9Y, I have the gold standard source for his birth and parents. 


Mayflower Families Fifth Generation Descendants, 1700-1880. (Online database: AmericanAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2017). From Mayflower Families Through Five Generations: Descendants of the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth, Mass., December 1620. Plymouth, MA: General Society of Mayflower Descendants, 1975-2015.


William Tefft appears on the next page and you can see that the Mayflower Society agrees with the 29 February 1732 birthdate. 


Mayflower Families Fifth Generation Descendants, 1700-1880. (Online database: AmericanAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2017). From Mayflower Families Through Five Generations: Descendants of the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth, Mass., December 1620. Plymouth, MA: General Society of Mayflower Descendants, 1975-2015.

https://www.americanancestors.org/DB2728/i/53443/368/72504417

What if the Silver Books are wrong? Well, you could join the Mayflower Society, assuming that you have a Mayflower passenger as an ancestor and you could do all the research and submit your proposed findings to the Mayflower Quarterly Magazine or directly to the Society for consideration. I have seen some corrections to books in the past, but this is the most recent edition of the books and includes five generations of descendants. 

In this case, the information supplied in the book for William Tefft exactly supports the conclusions in the Family Tree. Here is the question. What else is not supported by the research documented in the Mayflower Families Fifth Generation Descendants, 1700-1880? Well, right off the bat, we have an extra child in the Joseph Tefft KP42-4JS and Esther Brownell LWQZ-G2B family. Here is the screenshot. 


If you look at the page of the book above, you will see that there is no "Nathan Tefft" listed. This extra child was added back in 2028 and so far the addition has not been challenged. This person has no Sources and no Memories. There is also a possible duplicate. This is one of the most common if not the most common unsupported changes made to the Family Tree. In this case, the fact that the person has a name and an approximate date is not persuasive of any relationship. The fact that this extra child does not show up in the Silver Books outweighs any argument that there was an extra child. Here is the screenshot of the possible duplicate.


I could talk about the "burden of proof" here but legal jargon and arguments are not appropriate. Good research methodology would suggest that adding a child to a family be supported by some contemporary, historical source document. When I went to view the possible duplicate person, I found that he had at least three possible duplicates with other parents. None of these possible duplicates have any listed sources. It appears that there is a pool of Nathan Teffts out there with no supporting sources and they have been attached or not to various other people in the Family Tree. A quick search for anyone named "Nathan Tefft" on FamilySearch comes up with 10,784 results. I guess you can take your pick. 

For now, without any supporting documents at all and given the duplicates, it is time to detach him from the Joseph Tefft and Esther Brownell Family. Of course, I am going to leave an explanation. I thought I would start sharing my explanations with this series of posts. Here is what I wrote as a reason for removing Nathan Tefft. 
Thank you for your interest in the Tefft family. You added an extra child to this family, Nathan Tefft L1HZ-29Z. You did not supply any sources for the addition of this extra child in the family. Extensive research done by the Mayflower Society over the past 100+ years has failed to find any additional children in the family of Joseph Tefft and Esther Brownell. I have detached Nathan Tefft from the family. If you have any documentation showing Nathan's parents I would be glad to have him added back into the family. See Mayflower Families Fifth Generation Descendants, 1700-1880. (Online database: AmericanAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2017). From Mayflower Families Through Five Generations: Descendants of the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth, Mass., December 1620. Plymouth, MA: General Society of Mayflower Descendants, 1975-2015.
https://www.americanancestors.org/DB2728/i/53443/368/72504417
It is very likely given the duplicates that came up that this individual is really a child in another family. When a person is detached from a family, nothing happens to the individual detached. They are still in the Family Tree and with some research, they could be attached to another family. I did not make any of the possible merges. There is not enough information about the person named Nathan Tefft to distinguish him from the other 10,784 of them in the Family Tree.

Now I am back another generation to Joseph Tefft and Esther Brownell. Esther Brownell is my direct line ancestor back to Francis Cooke. By the way, I learned that FamilySearch is adding some of the Mayflower genealogy to the Community Trees section of the Genealogies link on FamilySearch.org. 

On to the next generation.  

See these previous posts:

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