Talk:Gilbert Shakespeare

Did Gilbert Shakespeare die in 1612?

It's at least possible that he did, although the responsibility for keeping the parish registers of the time fell on the clergy, most of whom spoke good Latin, having had to use it in the universities. I am not persuaded that a Church of England clergyman of the period would have used adolescens to mean "unmarried", it's a schoolboy howler. I have reverted the details of death to "perhaps buried" in 1612. Even if people believe the "unmarried" theory, which I do not, we clearly do not have any certainty and cannot state it as a fact that the GS who was buried in 1612 was WS's brother. Moonraker2 (talk) 10:37, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

While I haven't checked, I seem to recall both Chambers and certainly Schoenbaum concluding that the correct interpretation is that he was a bachelor; and do state it as fact that the record refers to William's brother. Challenging them would require some pretty strong sources that say the opposite—and even then we might have to explain the disagreement—or we'd be engaging in original research (i.e. a Wikipedia editor's grasp of Latin and opinion of Jacobean clerical practices cannot be used to challenge a WP:RS reliable source). Not that this is, by far, the most critical issue for this article right now, of course—so perhaps not the issue we should expend too much energy on quite yet—but neither is there any exception from WP:RS and WP:OR for underdeveloped articles. --Xover (talk) 11:27, 21 May 2011 (UTC)