Family Search vs Ancestry: Are Sarah White’s Parents from Otterton in Devon or West Bagborough in Somerset?
Sarah White: 1795-1880 (Maternal Third Great-Grandmother)
Isaac White: 1742-1819 (Maternal Fourth-Great-Grandfather)
Elizabeth Cox: 1755-1841 (Maternal Fourth-Great-Grandmother)
John White: 1743-1809 (Purported Maternal
Fourth-Great-Grandfather)
Sarah Gooding: 1772-1841 (Purported Maternal
Fourth-Great-Grandfather)
Every once in a while, I receive an email from Family Search
telling me about a new Source or a Memory for an ancestor in my tree. Sometimes
these emails lead to a new, valuable piece of information or a new family photo.
But sometimes, they simply lead to confusion. That was the case with my
third-great-grandmother, Sarah White Herniman. I clicked on the link in the
email I received about her, and was surprised to discover that Sarah White had
completely different parents and siblings on FamilySearch than the parents and
siblings I had found on Ancestry. This conflicting information left me confused
and worried. Had I missed something critical in my Ancestry research?
So how did the two sets of purported parents for Sarah White
compare? FamilySearch showed Sarah as the second child of John White and Sarah
Gooding, and said she was born in 1796 in Otterton, Devon, England. John White,
born in Otterton in 1743, had married Sarah Gooding on August 16, 1792. Sarah
Gooding was born in Devon in 1772 and was christened at Collaton Raleigh, Devon
on October 6 of that year. The couple had eight children between 1795 and 1807.
According to my Ancestry research, Sarah White was the
daughter of Isaac White and Elizabeth Cox. Isaac and Elizabeth were born in
Somerset, England, Isaac in 1742 and Elizabeth in 1755. They were married
November 16, 1773 in Hillfarrance, Somerset. They had eleven children between
1773 and 1798. Sarah was the tenth of those eleven children, born in 1795. She
may have been born in Sidmouth (one record suggests that) but her baptism took
place in West Bagborough in Somerset, where most of her siblings were also
baptized.
.jpg)
Sarah White, daughter of Isaac and Elizabeth White, baptism record.
Both the FamilySearch tree and my Ancestry tree agree that
Sarah White married James How Herniman on March 28, 1819 in Taunton St. Mary,
Somerset. The marriage record states that Sarah White was from Sidmouth,
Devonshire.
.jpg) |
| Marriage Record for James Herniman and Sarah White, showing she was from the Sidmouth Parish |
So how can I determine which set of parents is most likely
correct? First, I looked at locations. The FamilySearch Sarah was supposedly
born in Otterton, Devon, but married a man from Somerset, at Taunton St. Mary,
a church in Taunton, Somerset. I looked at the distance from Taunton to
Otterton, and discovered the towns were 35 miles apart. That would be quite a
distance in the early nineteenth century. How would an Otterton woman meet a
man from the Taunton region of Somerset?
James How Herniman, Sarah’s husband, was actually born in
Crowcombe, Somerset, which is only three miles from West Bagborough, where my
Ancestry Sarah White was baptized and where her siblings were born and
baptized. It is easy to understand how a West Bagborough woman could meet
someone from a town barely three miles away.
Still, the marriage record states that Sarah White is from
Sidmouth, which is on the coast of Devonshire not far from Otterton. That supports
the FamilySearch parentage.
One additional piece of information makes me more confident
that my Ancestry tree is correct. I have a DNA match to a distant cousin who is
a descendant of Jacob White, a son of Isaac White and Elizabeth Cox. Jacob was therefore
Sarah White’s older brother. I checked the FamilySearch records, and John White
and Sarah Gooding had no sons named Jacob, nor does John White seem to be
related to Isaac White. That indicates that the only way my DNA could match a
descendant of Jacob White is if we shared the same ancestor, Isaac White.
When I examined Ancestry’s ThruLines, I found even more DNA
connections. I have distant cousins who are descended from four additional
siblings of Jacob White and Sarah White. These siblings are Mary White, Hannah
White, William White, and Elizabeth White.
DNA really doesn’t lie. Therefore it is doubtful that John
White and Sarah Gooding’s daughter, Sarah White, could be my
third-great-grandmother. My DNA connection to the descendants of Isaac White’s
children is indisputable. Isaac White is
clearly my fourth-great-grandfather, not John White of Otterton.
I am confident that my Ancestry tree correctly identifies
Sarah’s parents as Isaac White and Elizabeth Cox. Apparently Sarah must have spent
time in Sidmouth before her marriage, despite her family being from Somerset.
Perhaps the family had relatives there, which would explain why her birth
record also shows she was born in Sidmouth even though she was later baptized
in West Bagborough.
I have found it difficult to change parentage on
FamilySearch. People just change it right back. I will probably attempt to
correct it at some point noting the DNA evidence, but for now I am content to
have come to my own conclusion about the conflicting clues relating to Sarah
White’s parentage.
Sources:
Somerset, England, Marriage Registers, Bonds and
Allegations, 1754-1914 for Sarah White. Marriage Registers, Taunton St. Mary,
1813-1828. https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/60858/images/42886_1831115184_0991-00111?_gl=1*1r6sio9*_up*MQ..&gclid=65117a15095f10dbfb8c13bb1b2b7843&gclsrc=3p.ds&pId=903444864
Somerset, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages,
and Burials, 1531-1812 for Sarah White. West Bagborough, 1701-1812. https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/60856/images/engl78030_d-p-w-bag-2-1-3_m_00022?_gl=1*56y138*_up*MQ..&gclid=65117a15095f10dbfb8c13bb1b2b7843&gclsrc=3p.ds&pId=366409
Ancestry ThruLines for Isaac White. https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-geneticfamily/thrulines/tree/134748591:9009:66/for/38B5E694-2D64-4CC7-BEFE-4FE8A7F44961
