Might as well copy this over while I’m here.
https://www.familysearch.org/photos/artifacts/135874870?cid=mem_copy
WATCH OUT FOR FALSE LINEAGES being brought onto FamilySearch from other genealogy sites. First of all, apologies for using capital letters but there is no italics option on FamilySearch to be able to highlight important warnings.
AN EXAMPLE OF REAL PEOPLE BEING BORROWED TO CREATE FALSE LINEAGES is 9V52-HW5, the longtime record for the real Elizabeth Montgomery on FamilySearch, based on “A Memorial of John, Henry and Richard Townsend and their Descendants,” Oyster Bay Town Records, NY and New Netherland court records and other reliable sources based on serious research and factual records, and including the current Townsend Society of America resources. ELIZABETH G81Z-W72 is one of many duplicates made for her that are part of an undocumented gedcom that has repeatedly created multiple duplicates using the name of Elizabeth Montgomery but that is part of a fictional lineage that borrows data from multiple, different unrelated Townsends from all different locations and even different centuries and makes up undocumented relationship linkages. “Data” for the husband and sons from this gedcom included “data” for people from multiple different locations and from 3 different centuries—quite a biological impossibility—It mixed up data from unrelated Townsend families. The facts for the real Townsend family of Oyster Bay can be supported by historical records in New Amsterdam, records from several towns in New Netherland and New York and court records for those same jurisdictions, from Oyster Bay Town Records, a variety of historical records and local histories in Rhode Island and by serious, professional research published in credible books and articles. The fiction can be found in various versions of “lineages” made up on geni.com, MyHeritage and Ancestry and Find a grave. It is also important to establish that old errors in print about speculative birthplaces have been dismissed by the Townsend Society of America DNA studies. Their birthplace and parents are not known and do not match other Townsend who have been allegedly their “parents.” See the study discussed at Townsend Society of America, townsendsociety.com.
LET's PLEASE STOP PERPETUATING THESE ERRORS LONG SINCE DISPROVEN and USE THE MORE RECENT SCHOLARSHIP. Hundreds of hours have been spent by knowledgeable users of FamilySearch to accurately compose the Townsends of Oyster Bay lineage by historically proven records. SEE SOURCES THAT HAVE USED RECORDS APPROPRIATELY such as the TOWNSEND GENEALOGICAL JOURNAL of the TOWNSEND SOCIETY of AMERICA at townsendsociety.org, and RECENT ARTICLES BY HARRY MACY, JR. in the NEW YORK GENEALOGICAL & BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD, the TOWNSEND SOCIETY DNA STUDY at townsendsociety.org and in a recent several hundred page study, fully footnoted, done about the families of John, Henry and Richard Townsend in New Netherland, New York and Rhode Island called “From Conscience to Liberty: Diverse Long Island Families in a Crucible that Gave Rise to Religious Liberty.” This work studies several families and is available at scudder.org. One of the goals of this work is to bring together into one place a comprehensive view of their history and genealogy from historical records and credible family sources. The section on Townsends includes corrections made by the Townsend Society of America Genealogical Journal articles and NYGBR and gives a descendant outline for several generations created by meticulous effort to incorporate and footnote the credible sources. This is cited in Sources and Memories on the pages for the accurate family of Elizabeth Montgomery and John Townsend. Great effort was made to reconcile any discrepancies found based on historical evidence and TSA work for many decades.
THIS PARTICULAR FALSE LINEAGE BEING REFERRED TO HERE gives John Townsend of Oyster Bay’s death date and long since disproven birthplace per DNA study, the inaccurate name of JOHN TITUS TOWNSEND for which there is zero justification since no record exists for such a person in any of the locations were John Townsend of Oyster Bay is proven to have lived during his era. There is apparently a gravesite in Oyster Bay and a Bible record for a child born 1823 and died 1824 with the name of John Titus Townsend, in that era when people did use middle names. He was the son of Sarah Titus and Daniel Youngs Townsend of the 1800s. NO other historical record for a John Titus Townsend is in Ancestry historical records or FamilySearch. There are a few John T. Townsends, such as the Confederate soldier military record in 1861 being attached to someone alleged to be born centuries before, or his "son," etc. etc. Other people are named John T. from various places in England in the 1800s. No John Titus Townsend is from Norfolk, England in any record and the birth date of 1592 appears to be borrowed from someone else with a different name.
When looking for HISTORICAL records for someone named John Titus Townsend, all that came up with the name John Titus Townsend were choices for people from the 1800s--other than the faulty "trees" being purported in some locations online. Not surprising since middle names in the 1600s were extremely rare. The claims being made that make children of the alleged John Titus Townsend & the alleged inaccurate version of Elizabeth Montgomery had a child born in 1615 is obviously biologically false in order for her to have her documented children up to 1663 as per their ages based on the distribution of John Townsend’s estate in 1671. Any claims that she had children born in MD, VA or GA are totally false. The history of the Oyster Bay family is documented for many generations remaining in New York except for those grandchildren who went to NJ or Chester, PA or Augusta VA, all of whom have well documented histories that do not match the purported false claims. The old Gershom Lockwood theory for a second marriage for Elizabeth Montgomery was disproven in 2000 by Harry Macy, Jr., in the “New York Genealogical & Biographical Record” in an article entitled, “Three Elizabeth Ludlams of Oyster Bay.” No one is more knowledgeable about early genealogies for New York families in the 1600s, or about Townsend history in New York in the 1600s. For years Macy was the editor of the Record and for years has been a contributing member to and on the Board of the Townsend Society of America. Gershom Lockwood married a different widow Elizabeth Wright who was Elizabeth Dickenson, widow of Caleb Wright. That error has been disproven for decades.
