David,
Thabnk you for taking the time to address my question. Your honest answer, "I cannot say with absolute certainty that it was our Hugh I. Wilson, and probably never will be able to..." is an important admission.
For me, what has been my problem with your hypotheses and proofs offered and conclusions drawn is not the content nor substance, but your methodology and acceptance as fact that which is not.
In your new discussion where you have posted your long-awaited and obviously hard-worked upon timeline, you once again state as FACT THAT HUGH WILSON MADE A TRIP IN 1912 BASED UPON THIS MANIFEST that you have just stated contains no proof that the Hugh Wilson mentioned is Merion's Wilson.
If you want your research to be examined under the microscope of scientific evidence as you stated on the other thread, then you have to adhere to the same methodology. State that a "Hugh I. Wilson" was a passenger on the SS Philadelphia on such & such dates and that from the little information given he APPEARS to match the Hugh I. Wilson of Merion... THAT I would never disagree with. Stating it as fact though, calls into question the veracity of your methodology and the facts that you present.
You stated that, "And so far no record of Wilson anywhere else during this time period..." That is like saying that since so far there has not been a single known contact with a flying saucer that landed in Washington that there are no flying saucers or men from Mars. One has nothing to do with the other. Either Wilson went overseas in 1911 or he didn't. Your inability to locate travel documents nearly 100 years later doesn't have any bearing on whether he actually went or not.
You stated, "Plus, this is the only one during the relevant time period who who even closely fits the match. If it is not him, then I'd be compelled to argue that maybe Hugh I Wilson did not go overseas at all..." Here you have stated your belief that Wilson never went overseas in 1911 despite much circumstantial proof that he did. Yet again, whether the Wilson mentioned on the manifest is Merion's or not has no bearing on his actions in 1911.
You appear to be have a clear-cut hypothesis in your mind but you also seem to be trying to frame the evidence to fit the idea rather than allowing the evidence to speak and tell its story.
You state that, "I just cannot do that from sunny California. I do not think that will be too difficult and I have a hard time believing that the this has not already been done! Seems a pretty obvious way to procede for anyone who actually wants to get to the truth. But therein lies the problem, I guess."
I can completely understand this. I currently have information about a set of working blueprints from the Bethpage State Park Project including margin notes in several different writing styles. I have been trying to travel from Atlanta to Long Island to examine these for several months now, yet each time I am about to go, something intervenes and I've had to call off my plans... It happens. Even though it does, unless you have someone you can trust to look it up, and even then they might miss something that you would see, you have to wait.
You also stated that, "Or if you’d like more circumstantial and speculative evidence, then notice that one or both of TEPaul and Wayne Morrison have readily accepted that this is the correct Hugh I. Wilson... Why don’t you ask them why the change of heart?" Tom Paul or Wayne's or Mike's ACCEPTANCE AS FACT that this is Merion's Wilson is NO PROOF THAT IT IS! That they do or not is up to them; as to asking them why, I believe that Tom has already alluded to accepting it because to him it simply doesn't matter as he accepts as true that the trip that Wilson took to aid in the designof Merion occurred in 1911.
In another post you state:
1. Hugh Wilson indicated that he went later, in 1911, after the Merion formed the committee and after the committee visited NGLA.
2. Travis puts the trip in 1912.
3. Despite comprehensive records of all overseas arrivals, there is no record of a trip in 1909-1911.
4. There is no evidence anywhere that Wilson took two trips to study architecture.
5. Hugh Wilson played in the Merion Club championship in October or November 1910.
Again, I take exception to your conclusions in #2 that Travis put THE trip in 1912. He didn't. He put A TRIP took place in1912. If you noticed my earlier comments after some took issue with assigning Merion's Wilson to the trip you mentioned because of the stop in Cherbourg, I quoted Travis from that same article wherein he states that when he played Merion, he though he saw turf that looked "suspiciously like the bents of Le Touquet."
The last I knew, Le Touquet was in France.
This appears to be at least CIRCUMSTANTIAL evidence that the manifest actually does refer to Merion's Wilson, but it isn't proof.
Also, that the absence of proof is proof that something did or didn't happen is wrong and that is why I disagre with your characterizations in point #3.
Now after all of that, I would encourage you to keep digging and researching and developing (not proving) your hypotheses. There are good questions that come out of the information that you have shown... just not the proofs that you believe to state what you have as fact.