Overcoming the Fire Swamp of the Family Tree

With my last post, I was working my way out of the "fire swamp" of the FamilySearch.org Family Tree. After several long hours of work, I was finally able to see some light and get that particular family under control. This process took somewhere close to between fifty and a hundred meges. Here is what that section of the Family Tree looked like when I started:

Here is what the same family line looks like now that I spent hours merging and cleaning up the entries.

Also, very interestingly, this particular family no longer connects to my own family lines. My Bryant line has Jane Bryant (b. 1789, d. 1874) married to Thomas Shoobridge (b. 1784, d. 1863) but there are no known parents for Thomas.

Now, it was time to see if there is some connection for the Thomas Shoobridge or whether I have more merges to do. I did find that his mother's name was Anne.

There is apparently only one Anne married to a Shoebridge in Rolvenden, Kent, England or any of the very small places around that town. But Richard and Anne Shoebridge (Richard had two wives, both with the name Ann or Anne) did not have a child named Thomas in 1784. But more research shows that this Thomas's mother was Anne Shoobridge and he was "base born" or illegitimate. \

So, my Thomas Shoobridge was not part of the fire swamp at all and we don't know his father's name. That seems to be the end of the story.