Susan, I think your soapbox was an unfair response to a simple and entirely appropriate question. It's arrogant of you to presume that everyone has or should have your knowledge of, or access to, the "accepted" sources in Mayflower genealogy. For most newbies, including myself, it can be very difficult to discern which sources are reliable and which are not. The theory that William's wife was Hannah Brewster was (first?) proposed in Ridlon's genealogy of the Soule family, which the Mayflower Society itself used as a reference in its Soule Silver book. Let's keep this an "open" forum where ANYONE with questions can post without fear of petty criticism. roser@iprimus.ca writes: > > There seems to be a large amount of conflicting information regarding > Hannah, the wife of William Soule (bef. 1671 - 1723). > > > > Some have her listed as Hannah Brewster and refer to two other husbands of > Hannah Brewster, to wit: John Thompson and Samuel Starr. > > > > Does anyone know who Hannah, the wife of William Soule was? Any idea why > there seems to be so much confusion regarding her? > ________________________ > > I'm not sure where you are getting your info from, but there is no > conflicting data or confusion over Hannah ( ) Soule or Hannah (Brewster) > Starr. > > The identity of the wife of William Soule is unknown and has been unknown > as far back as the 1980 Soule MF 5 generation silver book. It remains > unknown > today in the Soule MFIP books. > > The Hannah Brewster who married Samuel Starr is the daughter of Jonathan2 > Brewster (William1). She m. 2nd, James Morgan. (There was no John Thompson > involved.) > ____________________ > > Now for the soapbox: > > It would be of tremendous help to give the source when stating there is > conflicting data so that those who read the data we submit can evaluate > it's reliability. A check of the LDS site shows this is where the above > data came from. The fact that in this case, Mayflower research does not > agree with the data found at the site, does not mean there is conflicting > data, it means that like a great deal of the data found in the Ancestral > Files, it is old, unproven and unreliable. To say it is conflicting is > actually misleading and leads people to think there is some question about > the line - when there hasn't been a question for years, if ever. > > Wouldn't it be much better to say for example, I found this data at the LDS > site - how reliable is it? > > Susan E. Roser > www.rootsweb.com/~canms/canada.html