Merging 2 profiles
I believe Elizabeth Fursey b. 1739, ID# M6Z3-XDC should be merged with Elizabeth Fursey b. 1754, ID# KVJ5-PRR with the one born 1739 remaining and the one born 1754 deleted. The only source I could find that would indicate Elizabeth's age is her christening in 3 Feb 1739. All the other sources indicate christening dates for her children and list the father as Leonard Fishleigh, but it doesn't indicate which Leonard Fishleigh. I believe she was married to Leonard Fishleigh b. 17 Mar 78 (KJWF-QQ6) and not the one born 1754 (KJWF-S3W) mainly because of their age differences and the ages of their children. I don't think Elizabeth was born in 1754 because she would have been only 16 yrs old when her first child was born. I am reluctant to make the changes myself because I would like someone with more experience to confirm/deny my assertions beforehand. I don't want to step on anyones toes. Also, there is a 1841 census that shows a 90 yr old Leonard Fishleigh (born abt 1750) living in the same household as Sarah Braund (Fishleigh) which is one of Elizabeth's children.
Please let me know if this is something the community can rectify or if I need to proceed differently.
Thanks,
Larry Dunn
Answers
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I don't see any reason to merge them.
Elizabeth b. 1739 has only her christening record and her parents. This all comes from a christening record source.
Elizabeth b. about 1754 has only a marriage record which does not include either age or parentage. None of the birth records for her children as found on her sources page have any indication of her age. So the "about 1754" is just an estimate. However in the 1770's it was probably far more common to get married and start having children at 16 than at 31.
Looking at that 1841 census, I don't see anything to suggest that Sarah Braund's maiden name was Fishleigh. In fact, that 1841 record in FamilySearch is attached to a Sarah Western ID M6Z7-6ZS.
Basically, you have nothing at all to suggest these two Elizabeths are the same person.
Keep researching! I would suggest as a first step coming forward and learning all you can about Elizabeth's children. Some of them have a lot of sources. Try to find them in every available census and make sure those census records are attached to them. Maybe you will get lucky and Elizabeth will be living with one of them. Contact all the users who have contributed to their profiles and see if they know anything more about Elizabeth. See if you can find out more about her husband. In particular check out that probate that is mentioned and see what it says about Elizabeth. See if you can find a headstone for him and hope that it includes information about Elizabeth, also.
Even if you can establish a earlier birth date for Elizabeth you will still need to establish who her parents are before you even consider merging two people who just happen to have the same name just because their birth years are close.
Assertions without evidence are not worth much.
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Thanks, but just to be clear, I did find a christening record for Elizabeth Fursey b. 1739 which lists her parents, but I could not find one for Elizabeth b. 1754. I also totally agree that assertions without evidence are not worth much, which is why I question the existence of Elizabeth b. 1754. The are no records for her birth. I will keep looking.
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Yes, I saw that christening record attached as a source.
There is no doubt about the existence of Elizabeth who got married in 1770 even though you have no information about when she was born, where she was born or who her parents are. What you need is some records for that Elizabeth that gives information about her birth and parents. Right now, even if you could find a christening record for an Elizabeth born in 1754 you could not assume that is the Elizabeth who married Leonard without something to convincingly connect the two Elizabeths.
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Thanks, Gordon. I agree. The search continues.
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Apologies for the wacky formatting - not sure what happened there, but it won't let me edit to rectify. Whoops!
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RaniM, I was only able to read your post once before it mysteriously went away, but I think I got the gist of it. Thanks for your input! It gives me more to think about.
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Oh that's disappointing, Larry. I don't know what happened. Maybe one of the mods deleted it because of the buggy formatting.
I won't type it all again because it took some time with the specific references but key points:The 1754 birthdate looks like an estimate someone has made based on her supposed husband's listed birthdate. I wouldn't rule out the 1739 date entirely at this point but also consider variants of spelling in Elizabeth's surname, Furse and Furs give a number of hits for baptisms in Devon and surrounds between 1730 and 1759 that could be a match. Also consider, the marriage to Fishleigh may not have been her first marriage, in which case Fursley wound not be her maiden name at all. Tracking down the original record might shed more light on that.
Finding her death record may help finding her approximate birth. There are possible matches in 1794 and 1809 on FindMyPast but neither have an indexed birthdate, so you'd need to find the originals to see if they were recorded. There were no relevant hits in the civil registration Index between 1837 and 1843. The individual who died in 1842 would have been too young (born circa 1760) and the individual who died in 1848 was married to a John Fishleigh.
Leonard Fishleigh's will is held by the Devon Archives. Unfortunately it doesn't appear to be available online anywhere. But I agree with you that the Leonard Fishleigh born 1748 is more likely your man than the individual born 1754, based on his age at attributed death and age in the 1841 census, when he is living with his daughter Sarah (Braund). I agree with you that that census record is a match and was wrongly attributed to the Braund/Western family.
There is a marriage record between Sarah Fishleigh and John Braund in 1803. I suspect (though it would need further investigation) that many of the sources for children's births and some of the actual children assigned to Sarah Western are misattributed and may actually belong to Sarah Fishleigh. That other John Braund's first wife, Mary Western didn't die until 1817 and many of the sources assigned to Sarah Western predate that time. There's also no solid evidence that Sarah Western was actually married to John Braund - their child born in 1820 was christened under her mother's name.All a round about way of saying, I would pursue all those avenues of investigation before merging the two profiles you queried.
And finally a note on merging - always try to keep the profile that has had the most contributions made (often but not always the older one) this way other contributors are more easily able to follow changes that have been made and the logic behind them. It also makes it easier to find and undo errors should they occur.Hopefully these notes don't mysteriously vanish too! And I hope they might be of some help to you. Good luck in your research!
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