Proof, Fact, or Conclusion?

Today, I received an email that included the following:

I have just been made aware that you have ascribed a James Edney as the father of Ann Edney Tapscott George. I have already seen several Tapscott descendants listing that as fact. That you found a person named James with a daughter Ann somewhere in the vicinity would not hold water if a person is going to attempt membership in any reputable historical or genealogical organization. There would need to be a paper trail to firmly establish that, such as a deed or will in which he named Ann Tapscott or George as his daughter. It would be better to say that it is plausible that he is her father with the qualifying statement that it is not a proven fact. We have to consider the possibility that Ann could have been brought into the country under the same conditions that Henry came; under the sponsorship of the captain of a ship just in time for Henry to be searching for a wife.

To me this was a pleasant surprise. Why “pleasant”? It means that there are some “researchers” who rely on more than leaps of faith or unsourced trees, both abominations to me. In fact, I am only upset by one thing in the email — the statement that “I have just been made aware …” The first edition of Henry the Immigrant with the James Edney conclusion (not “fact") was published in 2006, ten years ago!

I have partially addressed some of the Ann Edney question in my blog of 5 Jan 2016 “The Elusive Miss Ann,” but something more is needed. The second edition of my book Henry the Immigrant contains ten pages of information and reasoning about Ann Edney and her marriage to Henry with more than 100 sources provided in footnotes (pp. 48-57), far too much to be put in a blog. If any of you would like a free electronic pdf copy of the book, send me an email and I will immediately return a copy as an attachment.

It is not always necessary that there be “a deed or will” if the evidence is sufficiently strong. No one doubts the existence of the atom, but who has seen one? Although my book never uses the words “proven” or “proof” for Ann Tapscott's parentage, the Board for Certification of Genealogists provides a list of requirements for a statement to have sufficient credibility to be “proved”:

1. Reasonably exhaustive research;
2. complete, accurate citations to the source or sources of each information item;
3. tests—through processes of analysis and correlation—of all sources, information items, and evidence;
4. resolution of conflicts among evidence items and
5. a soundly reasoned, coherently written conclusion.

1. Was there reasonably exhaustive research? I have been to Northumberland and Lancaster County Courthouses several times (in one case spending more than a week on site), reviewing ALL of the court records between 1700 and 1727 (and, of course, outside this time period) and also several trips to the Library of Richmond in Virginia, which maintains microfilms of court records in Lancaster and Northumberland Counties. The book, Henry the Immigrant, contains 2514 sources, nearly all original, contemporary, or from academic historians. Out of these only two family trees are referenced. I refer to one of these as “questionable.” I cite the other only to show that it is ridiculous.

2. All citations are 100% complete. Don’t believe me? Get a pdf file of the book and let me know if you find any incomplete citations.

3. Testing is a matter of opinion. However, the probable ages of Henry’s wife and James Edney’s daughter based on various records (e.g., guardianships, usual marriage ages) are approximately the same, the geographic location of both is the same, associates are the same, dates correspond, etc. Note that Henry and James Edney were not “somewhere in the vicinity.” They appear to have been in what became the Wicomico Parish 6th Processioning Precinct as laid out in 1711.

4. There are NO conflicts, not one, a fact pointed out in the statement in my book that “there is no negative evidence, nothing that needs be explained away.”

5. The conclusion? Rather than repeating what has already been printed, I urge that you refer to the blog of 5 Jan 2016 “The Elusive Miss Ann,” for a synopsis of the evidence from my book. And the synopsis ends with a conclusion, not a “fact”: “The evidence detailed below allows us to conclude that Ann Edney, the daughter of James Edney of Wicomico Parish, and Ann Tapscott, the wife of Henry, were one and the same.”

Again, I could not be more pleased about an email. Some people are thinking for themselves. Perhaps some day we can have an academically oriented “Tapscott Conference.”

The Elusive Miss Ann

I still find that a surprisingly large number of people believe the first Henry Tapscott (Henry The Immigrant) to have married an Ann Lee or an Ann Davis or even an Ann Lee Davis despite the fact that there is not a single reliable record - i.e., something other than trees based on imagination (see post of 3 Nov 2013). The latest score shows 98 Ancestry.com user-submitted trees showing Ann Davis as Henry's wife and 13 showing Ann Lee as Henry's wife. I had hoped that reliable research had put this ridiculousness to rest. Allow me to quote from my recent book:

On 16 May 1711 Elizabeth Nigings bound her son as an apprentice to ‘Henry Tapscott & Ann his wife.” Ann (sometimes “Anne”) appears in several records, but always, it seemed, with her married name, “Tapscott.” At first, attempts to establish Ann’s parentage were unsuccessful. The surname “Lee” was (and, regrettably, still is) assumed by many since Richard Lee was the recipient of a deed of gift from Henry. Richard Lee of “Ditchley,” a prominent Northumberland County citizen and Northumberland County Court Clerk from 1716 to 1735,  was often involved in legal transactions and signed numerous documents. This was one of those. In the deed of gift, which was restricted, Richard Lee was essentially (though not officially) acting as a trustee, not a member of the family.

Since one of Henry’s three sons was named Edney (as well as a great-grandson and a great-great-grandson), it was proposed that this might be Ann’s last name. Virginian first-borns were often named after grandparents, and the use of surnames as forenames to show family connections was common.  (The first-born children of Henry’s son Edney were named for a paternal grandfather and a maternal grandmother. The first-born of Henry’s son James was named for his maternal grandfather.) 

One of the grandchildren from Ann’s second marriage, to Benjamin George, was Ann Edney George.  But the name “Edney” was almost nonexistent in the colonial Northern Neck—almost nonexistent, but not quite. For in Northumberland County near the end of the seventeenth century lived a James Edney with a daughter Ann, who would one day be of marriageable age and appropriate residence—Wicomico Parish—to become Henry’s wife. Not only are James and Ann the only Edneys found in either Lancaster or Northumberland County documents of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, three legal records reference the name “Ann Edney,” or a variant thereof, before Henry’s marriage and none afterwards, when the name “Ann Tapscott” first appears. And James Edney owned property in the area in which Ann and Henry settled. Finally, there is no negative evidence, nothing that needs be explained away. The evidence detailed below allows us to conclude that Ann Edney, the daughter of James Edney of Wicomico Parish, and Ann Tapscott, the wife of Henry, were one and the same.

The next nine pages of the book, which is available at several libraries (see post of 20 Mar 2015), provide fully documented evidence for Ann Edney, her parentage, and her marriage to Henry citing over 100 historical records. Not a single record of any kind, other than duplicated, erroneous trees, created by who-knows-who from who-knows-what, exists with even the slightest hint that Henry Tapscott knew, let alone married, an Ann Lee or an Ann Davis. Unlike "Edney," neither "Lee" nor "Davis" is found as a given name among Ann's known descendants.