Case Study — March 23, 2024

Resolving a “One-in-the-Same” Person Problem

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Maximizing the Use of Indirect Evidence to Resolve a Kinship Determination

A client asked if I could assist in resolving a parent-child relationship with one of his early 18th-century ancestors. The following is the “proof argument” used to resolve his one-in-the-same person issue. This proof argument was provided as part of an application for membership to a lineage society.

Research Questions

Executive Summary

One of the challenges faced in this research project was the fact that although vital records maintained by the Town Clerk of Rehoboth, 1642–1896, were well documented, at no time did the town clerk include the names of parents in the marriage register. Therefore, my initial focus was to analyze the birth records in the first half of the 18th century in Rehoboth with a view of correctly identifying the lineage of the two primary subjects.

There were three women named Patience Cole who resided in Rehoboth between 1700 and 1753. Two were eliminated on the basis of age and parentage, leaving only one candidate — Patience Cole, daughter of John Cole and Mercy — as the wife of Jonathan Wheeler. Likewise, only one Jonathan Wheeler appears in the Rehoboth Town Clerk’s Vital Records for the period, the son of Philip Wheeler and Martha Salisbury.

Methodology

Though the initial analysis provides a particularly good indication that both primary subjects are one and the same person, further analysis of Vital Records and Last Wills and Testaments provides additional indirect evidence that strengthens this proof argument. In addressing this challenge, the Board for Certification of Genealogists’ Genealogy Standards, Second Edition, GPS 47 — Evidence Correlation — offers a method of testing evidence by “comparing and contrasting evidence items” as a means of de-conflicting evidence.1 This paper leverages the technique of Evidence Correlation with Patience Cole and Jonathan Wheeler — their parents, siblings, and children — in order to prove the kinship relationship of the two primary subjects to a genealogical proof standard.

Proof of Extended Family Relationships and Family Naming Conventions

The Will of Philip Wheeler, dated 10 Sep 1765, Rehoboth, Bristol, MA, provides insight into the family of Philip Wheeler. He named his wife Mercy as sole Executrix, identified his six sons including Jonathan, and named both his daughter Martha and his granddaughter Martha Wheeler.

There appears to be a tradition in the Wheeler and Cole families of naming their children — and grandchildren — after parents, grandparents, and siblings:

The Last Will and Testament of Silvester Peirce, husband of Patience Wheeler, probated 08 Feb 1830 in Durham, Greene County, NY, shows the same naming pattern continuing into the next generation — a daughter named Patience (nicknamed “Pattie”), a daughter named Martha, and a daughter named Hannah, after Patience’s aunt.

Summary of Findings

Based on a review of direct and numerous indirect pieces of evidence concerning the parentage and marriage of the two subjects, the kinship relationship is proven to a genealogical proof standard:

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Footnotes

  1. Board for Certification of Genealogists, Genealogy Standards, Second Edition, Copyright 2019, published by Ancestry.com, an imprint of Turner Publishing Company, p. 81. ↩

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