Thanks to Donna for sharing with us. Although, as it happens, this Thomas and his family have been discussed quite a lot on this list, this information shows graphically why it is necessary to be cautious when viewing data from the LDS Ancestral File. (There's no shame in getting a running start on a new line by downloading a huge pedigree from the AF, but the further back you go, the more errors you are likely to find, and many lines are incorrectly linked to medieval lineages solely on the basis of coincidence of relatively common names.) > Thomas Blanchard born 1586/1590 in France The date is a reasonably good guess, but the gist of many discussions on this list is the conclusion that Thomas was probably not born in France. This is a very sticky issue and can cause strong emotional responses in those who treasure their supposed Huguenot heritage from Thomas Blanchard (but the fact remains that the Huguenot Society does not admit candidate members on the basis of descent from him). For preserving the peace, it is best to stick to the facts for Thomas and not bring in any speculation. Unfortunately, the AF doesn't retain any source citations for its data, so it is impossible to tell what is fact and what is guesswork, except by intuition. As such, it can be a valuable lesson to take an AF pedigree and track down the information to the sources and find out what is real -- this can help to develop a "feel" for data. > Thomas's parents > Pierre Jean Blanchard born abt 1566 in France The same remarks apply here. > Thomas and Agnes had 12 children > 1. Samuel > 2. Nathaniel > 3. George > 4. George > 5.Thomas > 6. Thomas Jr. > 7. Samuel > 8. John > 9. Thomas > 10. Nathaniel > 11.Child > 12. child This is an example of the one of the failings of the AF: submissions from many contributors are merged together, but subtle differences in presentation (or simple mistakes in the data) can cause incomplete merging. The result is multiple copies of some or all of the children, as can be seen here. The fact is that Thomas and Agnes had only one child, or possibly two -- they had a daughter Agnes baptized at Goodworth Clatford in 1638, and an infant of theirs died on the voyage to America in 1639. Thomas had 7 known children by his first wife Elizabeth, but three of them evidently died young (and are not mentioned in the above list). The four who survived each appear at least twice in this list, and Thomas three times. The John in slot #8 is actually our friend Deacon John of Dunstable, who wasn't Thomas' son at all. John