Gene,
You are absolutely correct. Alexander Carpenters wife as Priscilla Dillien is from
secondary sources and never found in a primary source.
An example of a secondary source, IDEALLY it would properly cite a primary source, others
are tertiary like ...
Carpenter Chronicles, Vol 26, (Sept. 1996) Alexander Carpenter married
Priscilla Dillen and gives descendancy of Juelie Ann through the Morton family
to William Maxfield Meacham, Jr. of Roanoke, VA.
For those not familiar with the IGI (International Genealogical Index), it was the first
version of the later online One World Tree. The IGI was an index of submitted genealogy
with no real source material. Later came the Ancestral File (AF) that could have
contained source material but often did not. Both of these files were supplied by the LDS
Church before the World Wide Web and
Ancestry.com.
Facts are few, but here are some examples.
For example, Alexander Carpenter had a son Nathaniel baptized on 30 Jul 1582. No mother is
listed. See:
CHR: image <--- See screenshot 5
Name: Nathaniell Carpenter
Event Type: Baptism
Baptism Date: 30 Jul 1582
Baptism Place: Bath, St James, Somerset, England
Phillimore Ecclesiastical Parish Map:
Father: Alexander Carpenter
Source Citation
Somerset Heritage Service; Taunton, Somerset, England; Somerset Parish Records, 1538-1914;
Reference Number: D\P\ba.ja/2/1/1
Source Information
Ancestry.com. Somerset, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials,
1531-1812 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA:
Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2016.
Original data: Anglican Parish Registers. Somerset Archives & Local Studies, South
West Heritage Trust, Taunton, England.
https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=60856&h=...
Here is another child of Alexander Carpenter. Again, no mother is listed.
CHR: image <---- see screenshot 2
Name: Julian Carpenter [Juliana Carpenter] [Julianus Carpenter]
Event Type: Baptism
Baptism Date: 7 Mar 1584
Baptism Place: Bath, St James, Somerset, England
Phillimore Ecclesiastical Parish Map:
Father: Alexander Carpenter
Source Citation
Somerset Heritage Service; Taunton, Somerset, England; Somerset Parish Records, 1538-1914;
Reference Number: D\P\ba.ja/2/1/1
Source Information
Ancestry.com. Somerset, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials,
1531-1812 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA:
Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2016.
Original data: Anglican Parish Registers. Somerset Archives & Local Studies, South
West Heritage Trust, Taunton, England.
https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=60856&h=...
Even the given burial date given for Priscilla of 22 Dec 1653, with the married name
Carpenter, who may have married Alexander Carpenter does not have his name attached.
BURIAL: image <--- see screenshot 6 – She was 100 year old!
Name: Prescilla Carpenter
Event Type: Burial
Burial Date: 22 Dec 1653
Burial Place: Wrington, Somerset, England
Phillimore Ecclesiastical Parish Map:
Source Citation
Somerset Heritage Service; Taunton, Somerset, England; Somerset Parish Records, 1538-1914;
Reference Number: D\P\wri/2/1/2
Source Information
Ancestry.com. Somerset, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials,
1531-1812 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA:
Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2016.
Original data: Anglican Parish Registers. Somerset Archives & Local Studies, South
West Heritage Trust, Taunton, England.
https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=60856&h=...
Not much is really solid about this family!
John R. Carpenter
La Mesa, CA USA
Carpenter Cousins Project
http://carpentercousins.com
From: Gene Zubrinsky GeneZub(a)aol.com [CarpenterCousins]
Sent: Thursday, December 21, 2017 4:36 PM
To: CarpenterCousins(a)yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [CarpenterCousins] Re: Alice Carpenter and the Carpenter Sisters of Plymouth
- 2
The identification of Alexander Carpenter's wife as Priscilla Dillen, which appears in
the rejected Wikipedia article and is frequently repeated elsewhere online, is not found
in the respective accounts of Alexander and his family by eminent genealogists Mary
Lovering Holman (1919), Myrtle Stevens Hyde (1988, 1989), and Robert Charles Anderson
(1995, 2004). Hyde addressed the issue in her 1989 Mayflower Descendant piece:
The source of the 1589 marriage of Alexander Carpenter and Priscilla Dillen listed in
the I.G.I. is given as Charles Banks's The English Ancestry and Homes of the Pilgrim
Fathers (1929) and [Amos B. Carpenter’s] Carpenter Memorial (1898). However, Banks’s book
has no mention of the Carpenter–Dillen marriage, although it mentions the baptism of
Julian Carpenter, which had previously led the author to have the Somerset registers
searched; and The Carpenter Memorial does not identify Alexander Carpenter’s wife.
Banks, Pilgrim Fathers and “archives” are listed in the I.G.I. as the sources of the
baptisms for the children of Alexander and Priscilla/Dillie Carpenter. The “archive”
record may refer to a family group sheet listing a source as Arbert, Story of the Pilgrim
Fathers that states “a Dillen Carpenter accompanied Mary Norris when she married Isaac
Allerton in Leyden in 1611.” [Ed. note: See comments about the reliability of the I.G.I.
in the article on the origins of John Alden elsewhere in this issue.]
The P.C.C. Wills for Somerset 1558–1604 include no Dillen wills.
In sum, there is no credible source for the identification of Alexander Carpenter’s wife;
her name remains unknown.
Gene Z.
On Dec 21, 2017, at 8:53 AM, 'John R. Carpenter' jrcrin001(a)gmail.com
[CarpenterCousins] <CarpenterCousins(a)yahoogroups.com> wrote:
Whoops!
The Sail1620 article (found on the archive link) on the Carpenter Sisters has serious
problems with the Carpenter ancestry. Simply it has bad info. The primary focus on the
daughters is more accurate.
The rejected Wiki article I cited is better in details.
<SNIP>