Person talk:Thomas Simmons (3)

Fraud [12 September 2020]

Robert Charles Anderson is pretty harsh on Raymon Tingley regarding fraud:

p. 1683: "The most egregious attempt in this direction was perpetrated in 1935 by Raymon Meyers Tingley, who fabricated documents, including an alleged depositions made by Thomas, and managed to make Thomas both son and brother of Moses.", p. 1790: "this alleged document is impeached by its own internal chronological impossibilities", Vol. A-B, p. 411: "This identification derives from Tingley's most outrageous fabrication and should be consulted for its entertainment value only".

On p. 371-2, Tingley says, "Complaint against Samuel Nash, of Duxbury, that his land was not all fenced and his cattle ran loose. Testimony of Thomas Simon, of Scituate, aged about 49 years, brother-in-law, having married Elizabeth, sister of said Nash, that he helped Nash build a fence over two years ago, that Gilbert Brooks son-in-law of said Simon assisted."

Personal note: I have done some searching for this and have found nothing. Certainly, if Robert Charles Anderson didn't find it, I wouldn't expect I can. So it remains classified a fraud.

However...

Tingley does not identify a source. The sentence above he mentions "Old Court Records of Plymouth", but the previous sentence is about Thomas Symons being a servant of Dr. Samuel Fuller and his origins. It is unclear if this comes from the same source, the same court record, if Tingley's description is his name for Plymouth Colony Records, or if this deposition comes from a different source. Of course, if the deposition can't be found, it remains classified a fraud. But depositions can be squirreled away in land records, etc. So one wonders, has it simply not been found by Anderson? Perhaps it was mentioned in some obscure manuscript not yet published?

The deposition as presented identifies Thomas Symons' wife as Elizabeth Nash sister of Samuel Nash. It would identify Gilbert Brooks as husband of Elizabeth Symon[d]s. It says nothing about the relationship of Thomas to Moses Simonson. In the last aspect, Tingley appears to be guilty, as Anderson says many people are, of assuming a parentage for which there is no evidence. But this is not fraud, and he is not the only person guilty of this error. Looking just at a small subset of the people involved, the "chronological impossibilities" are not obvious. Thomas Symons is born 1600, his alleged wife born 1609, her brother born 1602, their daughter born 1628, marrying a man born about 1621 in 1644: young at 16, but not "impossible".

My review of Tingley suggests that he gives the same wife (Sarah Chandler) to both father Moses Symonson and son Moses Symons. However they appear to be different men, and the marriage date suggests Tingley meant the son (it being long after the father's children are born), but also listed her under the father. It appears to be a formatting or editing error. This type of error has been seen in many genealogies, and does not affect the treatment of Thomas, nor does the presentation appear to make him both son and brother of a single Moses.

If the facts in a document can be proven wrong, one of the explanations would be that the document is fabricated. Anderson's coverage of Thomas Symons on p. 1790 is uncharacteristically brief for a man he knows was in New England by 1633. He doesn't indicate whether he ever married and certainly in no way says anything that contradicts the deposition. On page 410 of Vol 1 (A-B) he identifies Gilbert Brooks wife as Elizabeth ---, which is not inconsistent with the deposition. For Samuel Nash, Anderson's counterargument is not to show Samuel Nash had no sister name Elizabeth (no evidence is known), but to simply say everything is fabricated and has no value.

This is declared a fraud and nothing has been found to change this. Certainly if it is a fraud, it will be unfindable. But at some point the falseness of a fraud should become apparent, and I don't think that has happened in this case - yet. --Jrich 03:20, 11 September 2020 (UTC)