Person talk:Thomas Miner (2)

An Herauldical Essay Upon the Surname of Miner [14 September 2013]

As most of you all probably know, many Minor/Miner family trees are based on An Herauldical Essay Upon the Surname of Miner, a manuscript dating to the late 1600's, that purports to trace the ancestry of Thomas Minor/Miner (the immigrant) back to a Henry Bullman who lived in the 1300s. The essay includes a Miner coat of arms and is written on a colorful, six foot long scroll originally published in New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) Register of April 1859 (volume XIII, pages 161-5). It is stored in the library of the Connecticut Historical Society located in Hartford, Connecticut. The essay, accepted by Minor/Miner family researchers for 300 years, was proven to be mostly false in a 1984 study published by the NEHGS. Ref: Miner, John A. and Miner, Robert F. The Curious Pedigree of Lt. Thomas Minor. [1] and [2]

As I was adding in my part of the Minor/Miner family, it looks like most all the Person and Family Pages from William Minor (22) back to Henry (Bullman) Miner (2) are based on the discredited Herauldical Essay. Thoughts? Here's the list:

Henry Miner (2) Unknown Unknown (4792) George Miner (1) Thomas Miner (7) Henrietta Hicks (1) William Miner (9) William Miner (1) Unknown Hobbs (4) Unknown Greely (1) Lodowick Miner (1) Anna Dyer (1) Thomas Miner (6) Bridget Hervie (1) William Miner (8) Isabella Hartope (1)--Frank 08:37, 12 September 2013 (EDT)

I'm all for removing fabricated information. The only issue to me is how to prevent it from being created again. Does WeRelate have precedent for keeping fabricated information with notes on each page to identify it as such? If so, I would unlink William Minor (22) from his parents (I see he has 2 sets), and then add a note to each page of the fabricated ancestry with a link back to this Talk page.

And then, when someone links William (22) back up to his fabricated line (which someone is bound to do at some point), just patiently unlink him again.--DataAnalyst 08:51, 14 September 2013 (EDT)

I'm not sure if there's a standard protocal for dealing with person/family pages that are factually incorrect. Your approach seems reasonable, though. I've seen a few conversations regarding deleting unwanted pages for other families, but the outcome wasn't apparent in the thread. With that thought, maybe one of the Administrators will weigh in on the preferred method. As I recall, JBS66 mentioned that only Admins can delete pages where more than one person is watching.--Frank 09:46, 14 September 2013 (EDT)

"SpeedyDelete" is the standard way to draw admin attention to pages which are candidates for deletion. That sounds like a fair approach for this, as it gives a chance for people to raise objections, such as that some specific person might have evidence for his or her existence independent of the fabricated source. --Pkeegstra 12:34, 14 September 2013 (EDT)

Thanks for the advice. I'll start the process...--Frank 13:05, 14 September 2013 (EDT)