Penn family/families in a HORRIBLE mess!

This is supposed to be "The" Master Profile for "The" William Penn: William Penn, Founder of Pennsylvania

I corrected place of death - he died back in England, *not* in Anne Arundel County (it's not clear that he had anything to do with Anne Arundel at all).

when there are more than one person of the same name in certain locales, i often wonder what the chances are that someone may have set themselves up with multiple identities, in order to avoid higher taxes to the crown or what have you. there was some serious espionage going on.

Not in this case - it's simple genealogical incompetence/malfeasance.

Englishmen, and colonial Americans, had very little imagination in naming their sons. Just about every family had a "William" and a "John", and most had a "Richard", a "Thomas", and an "Edward" as well. Some had multiples, with brothers and cousins drawing the same name from the same small deck.

The Penn family/families are not all on Geni.com that are in "a HORRIBLE mess." As far as I can tell, anyone can insert information -- rightly or wrongly -- into most profiles and genealogical lines and distort them beyond recognition. Information can also be deleted for no good reason. And there is no one at Geni.com riding herd on this, as far as I can tell -- no one to whom to appeal to straighten things out -- no one who is really a certified and knowledgable genealogist who can weigh in. In fact, this situation dilutes the entire value of Geni.com. It may be fun but to a large extent, given this state of affairs, it's a waste of time and money.

Private User - there are many mechanisms to keep good profiles from being "distorted". These discussions are a good way to learn how to use these mechanisms.

1) curators can designate a profile the Master Profile (MP); MPs can only be merged if a curator approves the merge
2) MPs can have their data fields locked by a curator
3) where parents are unknown, curators create Unknown Father of and Unknown Mother of to prevent merges bringing in erroneous parents
4) adding sources to the Sources Tab and linking Facts to the source helps keep the profile from being distorting
5) adding images also can help prevent bad merges and disambiguate between profiles with the same names
6) writing a clear and complete Overview will also help prevent bad merges
7) many people do not add ANYTHING to the profiles that they create - no dates or locations of birth or death, no Overview, nothing ... you can prevent bad merges by researching and filling out the details of your ancestors and relatives.

I'm sure others will suggest other mechanisms such as using the Discussion Tab to document CORRECT information and good sources and to solicit input from others who do research on a particular profile or family.

Geni is a powerful environment with a lot of tools. Part of the problem in my view is that many people don't take any time to learn how to use Geni nor do they ask questions in the discussions or email curators for advice or support.

Dear Hatte, Thank you for your long and detailed response, which only partially mollifies me re Geni.com's accuracy. For instance, Geni.com informs me that Patriarch Isaac is my 103rd great-grandfather, and his father, Patriarch Abraham, is my 67th great-grandfather. I know that the Bible is full of miracles, but that one takes the cake. I am also wrestling with another Geni.com problem that bothers me greatly but I will send you a separate email about that. In the meantime, there's this. Geni says that you and I are related. I'm Elizabeth Howland, "Mayflower" Passenger's, 33rd cousin 13 times removed. Well, maybe. I'm willing to believe almost anything. Best regards, Terese

PS -- Hatte. Geni says we're 19th cousins. Howdy.

Terese

Private User - Hello Cousin :)

I ignore anything before the 1500s myself. With one exception which is on my rabbinical lines where there may be some rabbi genealogies or on my Anglo-Norman lines where there are genealogies and Visitations.

I certainly personally pay NO attention to ancient history and to what I consider to be quasi history.

I am a direct descendant of Elizabeth Tilley who married John Howland. How well Geni represents our relationship (yours and mine) depends upon how complete our individual trees are. I have done a large amount of work in verifying my mother's side, much of which existed on Geni, but I have worked many of the lines and the Mayflower profiles have been worked on extensively, especially by Erica Isabel Howton, a fellow curator.

Ah, you connect into the rabbinical lines which is how you and I are 19th cousins on paper, but we are likely more related than that since my rabbinical lines married each other multiple times over generations.

I have numerous rabbis among my ancestors. Geni says that Rashi was my 27th great-grandfather and that I descended from two of his three daughters (Miriam and Yocheved.) I'm also a direct descendant (according to Geni anyway) of the Weil rabbinic dynasty. (Rabbi Meir ben Baruch of Rothenburg, who lived from 1215 to 1298, is said to be my 16th great-grandfather. The Weil rabbinic line persisted for almost 600 years.) Numerous members of the Kalonymus family (many of them rabbis) are said to be my direct ancestors. In Spain, Nahmanides (Rabbi Moses ben Naḥman Gironde) was an ancestor. And several of these lines seem to go back to the exilarchs and from them to King Solomon and King David. Maybe that's all rubbish. I don't know.

I know about the cousin marriages. I see them often in my family -- and the result genetically has been great intellectual brilliance, an abundance of talent and severe mood disorders (depression and bi-polar).

I realize that links to the Bible are too distant to be anything more than fiction, but I will confess that I love being a great-granddaughter of Octavian, aka Emperor Augustus, of Emperor Marcus Aurelius and of numerous members of the Roman and Byzantine aristocracy. I hold on to these fantasies!

Terese

I am also half Jewish and cannot verify anything on that side before 1850 or so. For me the biblical and rabbinic lines in geni are a "look up" and I leave to the scholars in those areas. I wish everyone would, they would retain their accuracy.

Geni is a participative activity. Spot an error, submit proof, it will get fixed, we have a "curator please assist" discussion which is monitored globally.

I do work some on my English and Scots ancestry by following my relationship path and documenting each and every link, at least minimally. Again, if everyone did that, it would be easier to maintain accuracy.

Hatte didn't mention in her fabulous post that curators have an undo merge tool, it's a little rough which is why curators only have it, no other reason than that. It's proven an excellent solution to an "oops," which happens to the best of us.

Re: I love being a great-granddaughter of Octavian, aka Emperor Augustus, of Emperor Marcus Aurelius and of numerous members of the Roman and Byzantine aristocracy. I hold on to these fantasies!

Wouldn't that be cool.

Sadly, I believe that in reality, we can't prove it. They called it "the dark ages" for a reason, including that there is little known family continuity from the Roman Empire to current time.

Rabbinic lines are more likely.

Erica, Actually the connection that Geni shows between me and those Romans (and Byzantine emperors and the Sassanid kings and some other exotic personages) DOES go through the rabbinic lines by way of the exilarchs and from them into my rabbinic lines of the 10th century and later. I have so many rabbinic lines that it's a gold mine! Geni says that I have 100,000 blood relatives that it knows about. Now I realize that this is highly improbable. Nevertheless, it keeps me going when I'm thinking about where I'm going to get the money to get my teeth fixed and how I'm going to pay the rent. :)

Terese

Ah, exilarchs. You are lucky. They should be pretty good and pretty believable on Geni (the scholars mentioned). How about them apples.

Of course you have at least 100,000 relatives (the database limit to display). Basic members have 5,000 relatives, does that mean they have less? Noooo ... just a display fiction. :):)

I have the same proliferation of cousin marriages in my family over many generations, with resulting health issues.

I love being related to famous scholars of the Golden Age in Spain who I studied. Shmuel haNagid is one.

Would that be Shmuel ben Hophni haKohen haNagid, Gaon of Sura? Geni says that he's my 34th great-grandfather. I've been thinking about this -- and you will know more about what I'm about to say than I do -- but it seems to me that Jews are the only group to have survived in some recognizable form from ancient history. The Hittites, the Sumerians, the Akkadians, the Amorites and others have disappeared as such, absorbed into other cultures. Modern Egypt and Greece and Italy are vastly different than they were in ancient times, linguistically and culturally. But the Jews have survived. And why? as the sages would say. I think it's because of exile and persecution and the diaspora. When Jews were exiled to Babylon, they became "the people of the book." They prized literacy and learning. They founded academies for Talmudic and Biblical study. Things were written down and passed on from generation to generation. So there is a papyrus trail. And because of the diaspora, when they were persecuted and killed in one place in the world, they continued to exist elsewhere. So -- although people with a different heritage will say it's only possible to go back a few hundred years or maybe a thousand years with any degree of certainty, I believe that Jews can go back much further.

I was thinking of this guy, who I studied, but the other one is ALSO my nth great grandfather :)

https://www.geni.com/people/Shmuel-HaLevi-HaNagid-al-Wazīr-al-ad̲j̲...

That guy who you studied (Shmuel HaLevi HaNagid) is only my second cousin, 33 times removed. That's because I descended from Shmuel ben Hophni haKohen haNagid's daughter and you descended from one of his sons. In 1969, I went to Spain for six weeks -- the only time that I've been there -- and I had the profound and eery impression that I had previously seen some of the places that I visited at that time. Of course, I knew nothing of what I know now. That makes this genealogy thing kind of spooky -- the possibility that ancestral memory lodges within us. I don't know, of course. I'm just saying what happened to me. Even though that was many years ago, I remember it vividly.

Yes, I have experienced that as well, specifically with Spain, Italy, Israel, and the Southwest of the U.S.

Hatte, I am so grateful to know that you have had similar experiences to the one I recounted. Our ancestors were in Spain, Italy and Israel — we know that for sure. As for the Southwest of the United States -- that may have been a stand-in for you for the Middle Eastern desert. Several years ago, I had the privilege of seeing the desert in Dubai. It wasn't like our western deserts. The sand dunes were enormous and majestic. I loved that desert. I felt as though I belonged there....But of course, you have been to Israel. I have not -- so maybe you saw and felt there that kinship with the landscape that I'm describing. Or maybe some of your people did end up in the southwestern United States. I know that's what happened to some of the marranos.

agreed. It says "William Penn, Founder of Pennsylvania is your fourth cousin 12 times removed's husband's wife's father."..but in actuality....(in other trees I have, especially Ancestry) he is my 1st cousin 11x removed. (I have a few Penn's in my line) Because of all the merges and twisted info here, it gets pushed around and wrong info turns into wrong connections...

Sometimes people that think they are helping by merging go too fast and ruin things it seems