John Bourchier Sears, II - Fictitious pedigree alert

Private you might enjoy this doozy of a spurious pedigree I ran across. Debunked in 1890 but still around. Oye.

I was well aware of this unfornately some curators were not and some continue to swear by this and some even engage in such behavior for their own gain on here.. I will not name them.

Could use help identifying what needs to be cleaned up.

Gen. Robert E. Lee, CSA Capt. Robert "Rob" E. Lee, Jr. (CSA) Maj. Gen. Henry Lee, "Light Horse Harry", Governor of Virginia areas I won't touch for that reason there is a lot of people that spur pedigrees off of them

ok... what in the areas of my 7th great aunt's second great grandfather would you suggest i devote my time to helping you debunk?

The immediate family only of John Bouchier Sears, {fictitious person}

ok.. hmm.. I'll ask fred and ann-marie for help and we can corndinate together the 4 of us.. imigrant lines esp non english ones are not my strong point.. but i will look at the data and see what i can do..

ok keeping the facts above in mind and checking that line.. my line to
Richard Sears, the pilgrim if this is the accepted one and not the phoney would be thru Elisha Eldridge, III anyway putting my thinking cap on here..
sending you a private message about this..

erica.. that's right i forgot you perfer the discussion tab format i will go that way if there is a problem i will tag the profile.. so far on my to do list is the parents i see on richard's profile.. and right away I caught a problem tagging them for further eval

What era are we talking about. My family used middle names fairly early on , here in the USA. William Taylor Parker , born 1763, his brother Timothy Orne Parker, b. 1767 and another brother Samuel Burrill Parker.Also there was Joseph Weeks Fernald in the family. They often used family names for middle names.

Judy we're talking about the first arriver to Yarmouth MA - Richard Sears, and his spurious English ancestry. He arrived around 1630.

He has been linked to an English separatist family of Sayer or Sears who resided in The Netherlands. They were not Dutch although there may have been one "local" marriage. The Von Egremont main family never heard of a Marie marrying an English guy though.

English Non Nobility did not use middle names until the late 1600s. So if you ever see one in a Geni profile - there something wrong.

The 1st documented use of a middle name in the New England Colonies was recorded for a Quaker birth in Rhode Island in about 1680 if I remember right.

So that's before the era I am talking about.

A lot of the English royals ete had nicknames. Lots of them. Example, John Lackland and Bertha Broadfoot/Barefoot

Nicknames are different - and they were a relatively "primitive" holdover. The last English king to have a widely accepted nickname was Edward I "Longshanks" (which was probably just as well, since some of the later kings could have attracted some very ugly appellations indeed).

Incidentally, Bertha was early Frankish, not English. She was Charlemagne's mother.

I never said she was English, just using her as an example of various nicknames ,

I never said she was English, just using her as an example of various nicknames , I acturally couldn't remember where she came into the family. All my stuff is packed and I don't knoow where everything is at the moment. I am living in a sea of boxes until I can find a new place to live,

Point is, nicknames are not middle names and can't be used to prove anything about middle names.

In the cases of more innocent "I'll take a guess" genealogists, I think what happens is something like -

Here's a record for Arthur, here's a record for Henry. Same christening date, same parents, same marriage record to same woman. So what's his name? Must have been both!"

And so is created - Arthur Henry!

Well - no. :)

The thing about the middle name Bouchier in this pedigree -- it's supposed to indicate his maternal ancestry. Which was "grand."

And in "much later" time frames in fact maternal lines were honored with middle names or even as (rather strange) given names.

But not in the 1600s. So to see Bouchier is at the very least an uncertainty alert.

I am sticking a this is a fraud line on the children and parents of john sears the ii..

Good, Michael! It's so unfair to the descendants trying to work their trees.

I really enjoyed reading how Mr. Mays of NEHGS researched and pieced together all (or almost all) the places Somersby of evil name fooled the Rev. Sears. He wrote to London & Amsterdam. He studied all the records. He dotted all the I's he could; it must have been the work of years. And he presented the case in 8 pages.

Should be a study piece for all of us.

Apropos of fictitious pedigrees, "Lady Grace O'Neill" just raised her charming head again, but this time I think I can drive a stake through her heart once and for all.

The "Arthur O'Neill" who married "Grace O'Hara" daughter of "Charles O'Hara" was born in 1600.

He was the younger son, by a second wife, of Sean MacBrian O'Neill (d. 1617), to whom King James I assigned title to Edenduffcarrick - known, after either Sean MacBrian or a descendant known as Sean "an franca" or "French John", as "Shane's Castle". (Sean an Diomais, aka "THE Shane O'Neill", had nothing to do with it.)

Even if the birth date weren't impossible, he is on record as having two sons and NO daughters.

Information found in "Leabhar Cloinne Aodha Buidhe", written in Irish but with snippets of English commentary in the preface. One of the snippets reads: "My father Arthur O Neille dyed the 25 of March, 1677, and in the 77 year of his age; he dyed between eight and nyne of the Clock at night." And a bit farther down the same page (xiv): ""My Mother Grane ni Hara dyed the 8th of March 1679".

Page v of the preface lists some of the O'Neills of Clandeboyne from Niall of the Nine Hostages (from whom the name was taken originally) to Sean MacBrian. Dates are given in Arabic (standard) numerals.

Page vi cites Arthur (Art Og), his older (quisling) brother Sir Henry, and his two sons, Sean and Cormac, in some detail. Dates are in clear and names (other than Sir Henry's) can be puzzled out with a bit of work.

https://archive.org/stream/leabharcloinneao00odon#page/n17/mode/2up

https://archive.org/stream/leabharcloinneao00odon#page/n7/mode/2up

https://archive.org/stream/leabharcloinneao00odon#page/n9/mode/2up

Built out the O'Neills of Clandeboyne solidly enough to (I hope) prevent anyone sneaking "Lady Grace" back in among them. (There's also a borked-up tree pretending to be the O'Neills of Clandeboyne, and that will have to be watched for and warded off.)