Major John Lewis, II - THIS ENTRY MAY BE SCREWED UP

You get right off on the wrong foot by bringing up the debunked "Robert Lewis" origin. We had that all out last year or so. No such person as "General Robert Lewis", not in the British Army, not on the Colonial militia. No records. No records of *any* Robert Lewis at all.

The founder of the Warner Hall Lewises, according to a tombstone found in their old graveyard, was a John Lewis from Monmouthshire (NOT Brecknockshire). And our resident expert on Welsh lines, Anne Brannen, has successfully traced his line back into the Middle Ages.

There has been some argument that Lydia Lewis was a daughter-in-law rather than a (third?) wife, so the jury is still out on that.

For the rest of it, there has been a lot of merging and re-merging and connecting and disconnecting, so there may still be errors here and there.

If you will present PROOFS of your assertions, we can discuss them and see how well they line up with what is already known. We don't do say-so here.

Also, please do not mistake the way names display on the family tree (either Flash or HTML) for the way they are actually recorded. A "Display" name will override any other data - and the HTML version of the tree is particularly bad at displaying names accurately (they're trying to get it up to speed but it is a slow process).

Some people choose to list a much-married woman's final husband's surname, some people try to get in as many of her husbands' names as possible, and some just go with the birth surname. It's not clear which is to be preferred, and the matter is still open for discussion.

As you point out, Y-DNA can be very helpful in sorting out who is *not* related to whom - though there have been some fairly strenuous arguments made about that by people with a vested interest in preserving their own family lines.

An interesting case in point is Peter Mallory of New Haven vs. Captain Roger Mallory of Virginia. For the longest time it was assumed that Peter was an offshoot of the same family whose paper trail had gotten muddled or lost. Then Y-DNA testing came along, descendants of each were tested - and they did not match at all. (Peter's descendants were a "close enough for horseshoes" match to descendants of a George Mallorie, back in England - so he wasn't just somebody's little oopsie.)

In all likelihood Geni will never be completely free of errors, but it does have a coterie of people able and willing to track them down and eliminate them. (This is more than one can say for Ancestry, for instance.)

For the next cleanup on this line, I disconnected Winifred Martin from John "the Immigrant" Lewis which looks like a duplicate ?

o.k.....fall-out ensues, ok? While Mr. Crump is trying to "figure out" whatever it is that he is figuring out AFTER he calls for a slew of scrutiny on this line...I have become my gggrandpy's grnaddaughter but my granny has become his wife...I will sit tight and wait for the line to be vvetted as I DO swear I want NOTHING more than an accurate tree...; however, I DO DNA match these folks and share DNA with others who claim them so please? Tread carefully...thank you. That is all---we are watching and counting on the lines to be vetted and since curators, plural, have weighed in, PLEASE do make this some M.P. profiles while ya'll are "at it"...thank you and NO disrespect meant ...ty

Winifred Martin is your second cousin four times removed's wife's 6th great grandmother.

Col. John Lewis is your 11th great grandmother's husband.

Major John Lewis, II is Ben Around The World, Cheraw Nation At Large Council, NAIF-SoTx/La's 8th great grandfather!

Col. John Lewis is Ben Around The World, Cheraw Nation At Large Council, NAIF-SoTx/La's 9th great grandmother's husband!

Winifred Martin is Ben Around The World, Cheraw Nation At Large Council, NAIF-SoTx/La's second cousin 7 times removed's husband's third great grandmother!

This is a direct line for me and I would hope that substianted proof will be sourced for said profile in question, which I too DNA match. I will be watching also, as I and many others just want things vetted! Thank you.

This is an extremely difficult tree at this level, and “everyone interested” is responsible for vetting their own descents. Please don’t leave it to curators! Our “job” is to make one tree, and help reconcile conflicting evidence.

My suggestion is to work through your own linkage from yourself up. This has been my own approach for years on Geni and I’m not nearly done. :(

I agree Erica, I’ve worked hard in vetting and sourcing my lineage. Just have not gotten to this said profile.

Part of the problem seems to be multiple unrelated contemporary John Lewises, and people who over the years have made careless assumptions about who was related to whom.

The Welsh *did not* consistently use surnames until Henry VIII lowered the boom on them. Although of Welsh ancestry himself, he was out of patience with the "ap X ap Y ap Z" style. *His* family had picked a surname generations back and stuck to it (as had some other families, particularly in the border areas), so he made a law that from then on everybody had to do it his way or else.

If he was hoping this would lead to a consistent application of surnames, he was probably disappointed. One member of a family would just drop the "ap" and take his father's name as a surname ("ap Thomas" becoming plain Thomas, for instance). Another would pick his grandfather's name or the name of some prominent ancestor. A third might pick a nickname that had run in the family, such as Vaughan (from "Vychan", meaning "short" or "junior"), or "Lloyd" (from "Llwyd", "grey").

Variations included taking the surname and tacking the "P" from "ap" onto the front of it where applicable (Prichard, Price), or, more commonly, attaching a possessive "s" onto the end (Jones, Richards, Perkins).

Needless to say, this makes piecing together a paper trail *much* more difficult.

John "the Immigrant" Lewis

He is now showing as grandma’s husband

Private User is correct.

Moreover, not everybody in the same family picked the same surname.

Moreover, the people who obeyed the law tended to be those on the cities, who had the most dealings with the government. Rural families often kept the patronymic system for some decades.

Is this profile correct? Do we know her parents ?

Lydia Lewis

Curator Note from Angus Wood-Salomon (9/11/2017):
Mastering to prevent an erroneous merge.
Her birth name of 'Warner' has been removed until sources are found.

Lydia Lewis MP
Gender: Female
Birth: February 03, 1610
Monmouthshire,England, Monmouthshire, Wales
Death: January 1680 (69)
Gloucester, King and Queen County, Virginia, United States
Immediate Family:
Daughter of Captain Thomas Hoverton Warner and Elizabeth (Sotherton) Warner

Who is Sarah Peddington

Showing as mother of the duplicate John "the Immigrant" Lewis

Is it safe to merge dup John into John "the Immigrant" Lewis ?

Can this General Robert L. Lewis, of Gloucester County be merged into

Robert Lewis, of York County

The answer is no, they are different. Althogh the source is not modern.

https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/13197/dvm_GenMono002122-00477-...

From Louise Pecquet du Bellet:

About the middle of the 17th century 4 Lewis brothers left Wales:

I. Samuel, went to Portugal
Il. William, d in Ireland
Ill. Gen. Robert Lewis, d in Gloucester, VA
IV. John Lewis, d in Hanover, VA.

Col. John Lewis is Ben Around The World, Cheraw Nation At Large Council, NAIF-SoTx/La's 9th great grandmother's husband!

Colonel John Lewis, l, of Monmouthshire is Ben Around The World, Cheraw Nation At Large Council, NAIF-SoTx/La's 9th great grandfather!

Sarah Lewis is Ben Around The World's 9th great grandmother's husband's mother!

It would be nice to have citations in each of the profile you claim as this line.

Lydia Lewis is Ben Around The World's 9th great grandmother!

Erica,
I posted screenshots on 2 of the profiles earlier this AM. I tried copying and pasting in the About section but it wouldn’t allow me. Let me see if I can source them another way. TIA.

Be sure and note which profile. So many Lewises .... argh.

Erica,
I think I tagged the profiles that are correlated with the screenshots. Also, I would like to add more descendants to this discussion if it’s possible. I, for one, APPRECIATE everything you have and are doing!!
We (those that are descendants) should be in here helping source and vetting these lines. I’m bringing the troops (fingers crossed). 🙈