Different Parents on Different Genealogy Sites: 52 Ancestors 2026 Prompt “Conflicting Clues”

 

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.  

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.

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

 

DNA Match Leads to Fourth-Great-Grandfather: 52 Ancestors 2025 Prompt “DNA”

Confirmation Through a Distant Cousin: Isaac White is My Fourth-Great-Grandfather

Isaac White: 1742-1819 (Maternal 4^th Great-Grandfather)
Sarah White: 1795-1880 (Maternal Third Great-Grandmother)
Jacob White: 1791-? (3^rd Great Granduncle)
John Clement White: 1828-1903 (Maternal First Cousin 4x Removed)
Margaret Estella White: 1860-1944 (Maternal Second Cousin 3x Removed)
Mary Irene Farrell: 1892-1979 (Maternal Third Cousin 2x Removed)
MLR: 1928-2022 (Maternal Fourth Cousin 1x Removed and DNA Match)

 

When I get a DNA match notice from Ancestry, I try to connect the match to my family tree. Often that can be a challenge, particularly if the match has no family tree on Ancestry. So I’m always excited to see a match with a tree, and even more excited when Ancestry has identified a possible common ancestor. My  DNA connection to a fourth cousin I will call MLR (she passed away recently so out of courtesy to her family I will use only initials) was just such a match. And MLR’s DNA and tree helped me confirm the identity of my fourth-great-grandfather, Isaac White.

My great-great-grandmother Nancy Ann Herniman was the daughter of James Herniman and his wife Sarah White. The records I uncovered for my third-great-grandmother Sarah White indicated she was the daughter of Isaac White of Somerset, England. However, I was mostly relying on other people’s trees to make that connection. I had limited records to work with. I had found the parish birth and baptism record for Sarah, seen below, so I was reasonably sure I had the right parents for Sarah. Still, I wanted more positive confirmation.

Sarah's 1796 Birth Record in Somerset.

MLR’s family tree led straight back to Isaac White through Sarah White’s brother Jacob. Jacob was born July 24, 1791. His birth record appears below. 

Jacob White's 1791 birth record, between the lines in the middle.

Sarah and Jacob had similar life trajectories. Both married in Somerset in the early nineteenth century. Sarah married James Herniman on March 28, 1819 in Taunton St. Mary. She was twenty-four and James was two or three years younger. I have been unable to find the marriage record for Jacob and his wife Ann Clement, but they seem to have married at least two years earlier than Sarah, for their first child, Mary, was born September 24, 1817. Both couples had several children over the next few years.

Both Jacob and Sarah’s families appeared on the 1841 England Census, residing in Somerset. John Herniman was working as a carpenter, while Jacob White worked as an ostler (worker employed to care for horses, often at inns). At some point following this census, both families decided to emigrate to the United States. Jacob and Sarah’s father, Isaac White, had died August 15, 1819, and their mother, Betty Cox White, had died February 27, 1841. Perhaps these losses freed the siblings from parental obligations, enabling them to consider moving abroad.

Jacob and Ann White and two children appear on the 1850 United States Census living in Dane County, Wisconsin. By the time of the 1860 census, they had moved north to the town of Fountain in Juneau County, Wisconsin. Jacob died there the same year.

James and Sarah Herniman were more difficult to trace. They appeared on an 1855 New York State census living in Grand Island, Erie County, New York. James was farming. None of their children were living with them although Nancy Ann and husband Charles Macbeth were in the same town and a couple other of their children were in Erie County. By the time of the 1860 census, Sarah and James were living in Lawanee, Michigan. James was working as a laborer and had shaved a few years off his age on the census form. They were living next door to their son John Herniman and his family. In addition, their youngest daughter Mary Redick, now the married mother of two, was living with them. By the 1880 census they had relocated to Juneau County, Wisconsin to live with son William and his wife. Sarah died there in 1880, and James died in 1882.

My cousin MLR was descended from Jacob and Ann’s son John Clement White, who remained in Juneau County for much of his life, serving as the chairman of the county board of supervisors thirteen times. He had a daughter named Margaret Estella White, who married a man named Daniel Farrell.

Fountain, Minnesota to Fountain, Wisconsin.

The Farrells relocated to Minnesota. In a strange coincidence, they also settled in a town named Fountain, about 120 miles away from Fountain, Wisconsin where Margaret’s family lived.  Among the Farrells’ children was a daughter named Mary Irene Farrell, born October 3, 1892 in Fountain, Fillmore County, Minnesota. She married Gordon Rowley, and moved to first to Walla Walla, Washington and then to Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Mary and Gordon had two daughters, and one of those daughters was my DNA match.

Thanks to this DNA match, I have confirmation that Isaac White is my fourth-great-grandfather, and I have been able to add another branch to my family tree. DNA matches are proving to be a big help in my research.

Sources:

Census records accessed on Ancestry.com.

Birth records accessed on Ancestry.com.

Returning to the Scene: 52 Ancestors 2025 Prompt “Overlooked”

 

Overlooked Information Provides a Richer Picture of Fourth Great Grandfather

Isaac White: 1742-1819 (Maternal Fourth-Great-Grandfather)

 

I was recently reminded that reviewing records of ancestors that I first researched years ago can provide valuable new information. While looking at a fan chart of one section of my tree, I noticed that I had no mother listed for my fourth great-grandfather, Isaac White. This prompted me to take a fresh look at his profile on my Ancestry tree. While I found two new records that added to my understanding of his life, most of what I discovered had been overlooked on my first pass through the records.

So what did I know about Isaac White? He appears to have been born around 1742, based on records showing his age at different points in his life, and his death record from 1819 which stated he was 77 years old at death. His entire adult life seems to have been spent in West Bagborough, Somerset, England, where he was a farmer. As rural farmers in the 1700s rarely moved any great distance, he probably was born in the same general area.

I had listed his father as William White, born in 1724. I apparently copied this information from other trees on Ancestry without taking the necessary effort to verify this parentage. I should have been a little dubious just from looking at the purported father’s birth date; William would only have been eighteen when Isaac was born. In addition, William White was born in Holborn, London, almost two hundred miles from West Bagborough. Why would he have relocated so far from home? Or why would his son Isaac have done so?

I looked at three other family trees that included birth records for Isaac. All used the same birth record, showing parents William and Ann, from the parish of Frome St. John, Somerset. Frome is forty-five miles from West Bagborough, which was a red flag. However, the bigger problem with that birth record was the date, which all three tree owners (and I) had blithely ignored: July 1754, twelve years after my Isaac’s likely 1742 birth date. The Frome parish record was probably for a completely different Isaac White. I have removed the record from my tree’s profile for Isaac White.

My searches so far have not turned up any likely parents for Isaac, so ironically my attempt to identify Isaac’s mother led to the removal of his father from my tree. My “brick wall” on Isaac’s parentage is now taller than ever.

However, I made two other discoveries that were very interesting. First, when I examined Isaac’s original 1773 marriage record, I noticed that he had signed his own name quite legibly, showing he was literate. However, his spouse, Elizabeth Cox, could only make her mark—a little oval shape. She obviously could neither read nor write.

I also examined a Land Tax Redemption Record from 1798 for West Bagborough. It shows that Isaac White was a tenant farmer – the “occupier” according to the terms of the record – of three parcels of land owned by what looks like “William Yeo”. The Redemption Records were taken nationwide in 1798 to assess a land tax on landowners. The records show the property owners, the names of the occupants/renters of the land, and the tax amounts owed. This is proof that Isaac was farming land in West Bagborough, but did not own his land.

The final discovery was the most interesting, and provides the best—and saddest--glimpse into the lives of these long-dead ancestors. Isaac White died August 15, 1819 at age 77. 

Someone in England uploaded the newspaper report of the inquest into Isaac’s death. The item is printed below:

It sounds as if Isaac was an alcoholic. He got so drunk at age 77 that he passed out in the yard, falling onto his back, and apparently asphyxiated on his own vomit. Since his wife didn’t go looking for him when he didn’t come home, it would appear that she was accustomed to his heading out to drink and not returning home for hours.

My new discoveries about Isaac White showed me the value of reviewing the data in my family tree. New sources may have been added over the years, like the newspaper item on the inquest. But even more importantly, valuable information can so easily have been overlooked in a first pass through records.

Sources:

UK, Land Tax Redemption, 1798 for Isaac White. https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/2319/records/502617?tid=46986934&pid=322190764690&ssrc=pt

Somerset, England, Marriage Registers, Bonds and Allegations, 1754-1914 for Isaac White. https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/60858

Inquest Verdict. Taunton Courier, Taunton, Somerset. Page 7, 26 Aug 1819.