Recently, a good friend of mine sent something he’d found online about my ancestor, Alexander Sinkler. As we often find, the person who posted this online didn’t list sources - not a single source. The document also claimed to know the wife of the man, something no researches have ever found (again, no sources). It also claimed to know his father and mother, an obvious attempt to tie him into the Rosslyn bunch.
I followed many others who did good genealogy research on Alexander Sinkler, the 1698 immigrant from Glasgow to Prince William County, Virginia. The main genealogist, for 35 years, was Jean Grigsby who is now retired from all that work. She wrote the main book on the descendants of the man and several addenda as her research continued. I verified much of what Jean had done, added some new information in Richmond County Virginia, and then spent the next 7 years focussing on his possible connections in Scotland and the wider U.K.
My point is this: If you’re doing research on your family, be stubborn about listing your sources. The questionable research mentioned above had Alexander Sinkler’s birth date as 1672. Here’s more accurate research, with the source shown -
Alexander testified in a court regarding a land dispute on behalf of John Mercer.
In a deposition given in Virginia on September 7, 1745, Alexander stated he was born in Scotland, and was about 79 years of age, which indicates a birth year of around 1666. [Source - John Mercer Land Title Book, page 17; VA State Archives Acc. #20487.]
The “A” above is from October 13th, 1736, when Alexander Sinclair picked up a quill pen, leaned over the Will of James Redish, and marked that he was a witness of the will with his initial. (Stafford County Will Abstracts 1729-1748)
