I have started the clean up -- this article was clearly not written in the style of an encyclopedia article. Please see WP:NOT -- an encyclopedia article should not pose questions or speculate. Let's stick to the facts that are verifiable. More work is likely need to salvage this. Ground Zero | t 17:12, 21 December 2007 (UTC)Reply
It's hard to have confidence in this article when it's apparently the work of an amateur digging around from his computer seat. What else is the following but a description of one editor's original research? Because there is a project at the Maryland State Archives to bring all extant vital records in Maryland online, research began with the end to see if there were any records of anyone with such a distinctive name who died in Maryland. Two were found, father and son.... Cipriano died at the end of a census year, so his presence in Maryland could be traced backwards decade by decade using census schedules on Ancestry.com which provides all the extant census records accompanied by more or less helpful indexes.
The smell of vanity project is made stronger by POV tidbits in the intro like "From that day forward, historians have argued over whether or not there was a plot and in the course of their narratives have not only created myths and perpetrated fallacies" (unfortunately unelaborated). The representative of one side on the debate, Scharf, just "spilled ink"; the leader of another side, Evitts, conducted "carefully considered research". I'm skeptical how much of this passes Wikipedia's standard of verifiability. NOTE: The contributor here simply did not read carefully, nor did he or she consult the Maryland State Archives web site. The initial Wikipedia article was based on a secondary source, the on line biography of Ferrandini at the Maryland State Archives web site. The author there is a recognized scholar who has published two widely used volumes of biography. The author of this article agrees that every author needs a good editor and the article definitely needs strengthening. Some of the changes, however, were made by others who needed their own editing by a good editor. That is one of the strengths of Wikipedia, in that people do pay attention and eventually improve what is written there. Civility sometimes is lacking however in these comments coupled with undeserved arrogance, which is the case here. 71.136.180.15 (talk) 00:07, 15 April 2008 (UTC)Reply
