Person talk:Mary Hayward (16)

Speculative relationship template warranted? [26 January 2014]

I notice that the speculative template relationship has been added, suggesting she might be the wife of Thomas Griswold, as stated by Stiles in History of Ancient Weathersfield. The guidelines for speculative relationship indicate that it 'is used to express a possible family connection that is now neither generally accepted nor convincingly refuted'. I take this to mean that the short article in TAG 36:200 is not considered to be a convincing refutation. However, the article points out that there is no documentary evidence for the alleged marriage, in spite of significant effort to find such proof, and there is a church entry (that, while a little odd in itself) strongly suggests that Mary Hayward was still unmarried as of 1678 (more than 5 years after Thomas Griswold married his wife Mary).

Great Migration (which I cited onThomas Griswold and Mary Unknown's page but not in Mary Hayward's page) describes this relationship as "almost certainly" not true (citing TAG), which suggests that the authors found the TAG refutation reasonably convincing.

So I question whether the speculative relationship template really belongs here. The guideline further states that the template 'is used to record the possibility and to encourage research to confirm or refute the connection.' I would suggest that the possibility of this relationship being true is extremely low, and further research to confirm or refute it is likely to have no more value than simply to research the identity of Thomas' unknown wife. It is pretty hard to find proof that something did not happen, other than to prove that something contradictory did (which the record suggesting Mary Hayward was unmarried in 1678 does).

The problem I have with including the template here is that I feel that it puts too much weight on a statement that (while included in a published book) apparently has no evidence whatsoever to back it up. If others feel this template is warranted in this situation, I will bow to majority opinion, but I thought it was worth questioning.--DataAnalyst 18:29, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

I was only trying to use the assertions in order to make the situation of a troubled bit of information a bit more clear. If the general feeling is that the situation is more accurately considered to be refuted, then speculative, fine - we'll make it the refuted template! Gee whiz - relax! --jrm03063 19:59, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Nomerge Template

Do not merge this page with Person:Mary Unknown (6551).

The nomerge template should only be removed if documented evidence is found to establish that the wife of Thomas Griswold was Mary Hayward. Such evidence does not include assertions made prior to 1959, when this identification was refuted (see the full text of the source cited on her Person page), or statements made based on the pre-1959 assertions.--DataAnalyst 19:05, 26 January 2014 (UTC)