Verification & Methodology

How the Archive Tags Its Claims

Every parent-child link in the archive carries one of three sourcing states. Sourced means a non-FamilySearch authority states the relationship and attributes it to a named published genealogy or primary record. Not established (NE) means FamilySearch asserts the link but no independent source has yet been confirmed at the relationship level. Disputed means published scholarship contests the claim, and it is relocated to the /basement disclosure layer as labeled family tradition.

Of the 91 parent-child edges examined in the 2026 audit, 12 (about 13 percent) are independently sourced; 52 remain not established and are listed openly in the edge-sourcing roadmap, and 27 belong to the disputed royal chain held in the basement. The framework’s commitment is to remove or relabel claims that do not meet documentation standards rather than assert them as fact. The full audit-pass documentation is at /audit.

External Authority Verifications

Every person in the archive carries a FamilySearch PID, a stable identifier that resolves to that individual’s entry in the FamilySearch Family Tree (familysearch.org/tree/person/details/), a separate authoritative genealogical database. These PIDs are not internal labels; they are external, cross-site identifiers. Because every named ancestor, and the relationships asserted between them, can be checked against an independent database, the PID layer constitutes structural cross-source verification that sits alongside the published authorities below.

The Society of Mayflower Descendantsverifies the documented descent through four passenger lines: Francis Cooke, Richard Warren, George Soule, and Degory Priest. The Society’s lineage-verification standard is independent third-party verification by credentialed genealogists.

New England Historical and Genealogical Register (roadmap). A submission of the Hannah Coffin parentage resolution (audit/00 resolved findings; corrected edge in audit/04) to the Register is planned.

FASG-credentialed peer review (roadmap). Engagement of a reviewer credentialed as a Fellow of the American Society of Genealogists is targeted for additional independent review.

Published Authorities Cited

The full per-source citation index is maintained at /references. The authorities the archive relies on include the following.

Published genealogies and standard works: John Lambrick Vivian, The Visitations of the County of Devon (1895); Robert Charles Anderson, The Great Migration Begins and The Great Migration 1634-1635(NEHGS); the General Society of Mayflower Descendants’ Mayflower Families Through Five Generations silver books (the Cooke, Warren, Soule, and Priest volumes); Alexander Starbuck, The History of Nantucket (1924); Lydia S. Hinchman, Early Settlers of Nantucket (1901); Louis Coffin, The Coffin Family(Nantucket Historical Association); and Alicia Crane Williams, “The Coffin Cluster,” Vita Brevis (NEHGS, 2019).

For the disputed Westcott splice only: J. Russell Bullock, Incidents in the Life and Times of Stukeley Westcote (1886); Roscoe L. Whitman, History and Genealogy of the Ancestors and Some Descendants of Stukely Westcott (1932 to 1939). Cited on the disputed royal chain only, preserved in the basement: Richardson, Weis, Roberts, Faris, and Cokayne’s The Complete Peerage. Methodology: Thomas W. Jones, Mastering Genealogical Proof (2013); Board for Certification of Genealogists, Genealogy Standards (2019).

Institutional databases: FamilySearch Family Tree; WikiTree; the Find a Grave Memorial Project. Regional and primary sources: Coffinquest; the Nantucket Historical Association (the Eliza Starbuck Barney Genealogical Record); Vital Records of [Town], Massachusetts, to 1850; Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War; Devon parish records; and American Ancestors (NEHGS). See /references for the complete, categorized bibliography.

Voluntary Basement Relocations

Westcott-Plantagenet medieval descent, relocated to /basement#plantagenet-claim. Ten independent sources spanning 1886 to 2026 (audit/06) conclude that the splice between Stukely Westcott and his alleged English Plantagenet-line ancestors is not documented. Preserved as labeled family tradition, not record.

Coffin Norman Conquest 1066 origin, relocated to /basement#coffin-norman-claim. The traditional Sir Richard Coffin at the Battle of Hastings is carried in family tradition but not in primary records; Vivian’s Visitations carries the documented Coffin of Porthledge line back only to a Richard Coffin in the reign of Henry II (1154 to 1189), with no Hastings companion. The 1066 origin is preserved as tradition (audit/05).

A third research track, the Unsourced British Gentry names, is held in the basement pending sourcing, listed openly rather than asserted.

Resolution Case Studies

Hannah Coffin parentage (audit/00 resolved findings; audit/04 edge correction). Resolved as the daughter of James Coffin, not his brother John, using three independent sources (Find a Grave, Coffinquest, Geni). Corrected an inherited identity conflation.

Mid-17th-century departures (audit/07). Distinguished the English Civil War’s effect on the Royalist Coffin family of Devon (1640s) from the Cromwellian confiscation of O’Long lands in Cork (1654): two separate events, two causes, two decades.

Coffin medieval audit (audit/05). Anchored the documented Coffin Devon line on Vivian’s Visitations from the reign of Henry II forward, with the traditional 1066 origin relocated to the basement.

Honest Gaps

• About 13 percent of parent-child edges (12 of 91) carry independently sourced documentation. The remainder are not established or disputed and are treated accordingly.
• The archive is not yet peer-reviewed by an FASG-credentialed genealogist; that engagement is on the roadmap.
• Some custodians in the multigenerational stewardship chain are still unidentified, including the Annotator, the blue-ink labeler of the Warren-Winter photograph collection.

Roadmap for Further Validation

• NEHGS Register submission of the Hannah Coffin resolution.
• Engagement of an FASG-credentialed reviewer for independent peer review.
• WikiTree profile claiming for documented ancestors with linked source citations.
• FamilySearch profile annotation with archive citations.

Citation and Correction

Per-page citations run throughout the archive. The archive welcomes correction, source contribution, and reciprocal citation from researchers, genealogists, hereditary society members, and historians.