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If I were a Goins / Gowen, etc. descendant, looking into that family's history, and I noticed the phenonenon you refer to (which James Nickens mentioned in a post the other day, also), it would certainly give me pause. But I would attack the problem in several different ways: With assumptions to prove or disprove, and with theories to explore. All of the avenues to take MUST be gone down, or those hugging closely to one and skeptical of the other will never be satisfied with conclusions that aren't based on all the components for which there are followers and adherents. But each course of study contains more than one "lane" on the given "road." Those lanes may lead to the same place, but the speed and demand for driving in a certain style varies, one fro the other. Geneaolgical proofs, of course, can start anywhere, and work forward or backward--but always from one mile marker to the next or the previous. Skip even one and the whole journey is ruined.
Another (simultaneous) approach (i.e. in another lane on the way to some proof) is testing hypotheses about relatedness between the various groups--looking at migration, land and inheritance documents, census records, marriage, birth and death records, and wills ... but at a certain point in time or in some areas where such records were all destroyed, much of that becomes impossible to find.
Another would be the secondary records like church minutes, papers and articles and letters referring to the group ... which must be carefully monitored to avoind them taking on way too much significance, relative to other approaches, but which are, nevertheless, very helpful, and full of clues ... but to what? That's the question orlook out when studying such documentation. NONE of it should be taken at face value. ALL of it is highly biased and written for reasons that are no longer transparently apparent. Effort has to go into studying the CONTEXT of such documentation, as well as comparing it to other, similar kinds of ducumentation in other cases, to attempt to ascertain the reason, the agenda, the meaning, and the bias in each separate one. Is something exaggerated? Hidden? Colored for effect? Made to appear more appalling for another kind of effect? Purposely left unsaid? Deliberately vague or unreasonabley pointed? Those kinds of references often receive more attention than they should, are confused with primary documentation are looked at uncritically because there is such a paucity of primary documentation that is much less likely to be biased.
In the situation you ask about, some kind of camparitive DNA testing would hold great possibility for showing common antecedents. But there are also many factors that might tend to make different groups that actually ARE related, look like they might not be--not the least of which would be children born on the wrong side of the blanket, adoptions, raising siblings', half-siblings', cousins' and even neighbors' kids ... and many others. Don Collins DNA matches with several people named BUNCH hint at something at work there. Either some Collins or some Bunch must have been getting busy with the neighbor's wives ... or there were marriages we thought were first marriages, but which were actually seconds, etc. So DNA isn't perfect .. but you could strike gold, too. Certainly worth the effort if you have the funds.
And finally, the pieces gathered have to match up historically. And there are lots of different aspects of history to take into account. Remember that scientists have gone through many different theories about how the atom behaves, only to find out with each new and promising theory that there is a flaw in the model when put into this or that situation. Then the model has to be modified in a way that defeats the weakness, so that the new model performs in the new situation AND doesn't lose its ability to perfrom in all the previous tests. We have no balck-and-white tests for these theories, but we can see if "this dog will hunt," as you say, in light of something known about the time, place, migration, law, custom, or various aspects of human nature that might precluse a particular "finding" from being realistic.
And, with respect to an issue like the multiple "Goins" families that seem to some to be unrelated ... there is another issue to examine: Is there a similar-sounding NAME in another language ... like in ANGOLAN ... that might have been very common back in Africa ... or in Portugal, or Turkey, etc. In a way, you open up another "name / word origin debate," but so what? If "Goins" ... or a name that SOUNDS like it is like the "Smith" of Angola, or the "Wang" of Portugal ... then don't you need to KNOW that before you can really progress in finding the solution to the puzzle of "too many Goins'"?
Personally, I think they are probably all related. OR several different ones came here with the same name ... in which case, like both our Randolphs and our Throckmortons, they MAY have been related back across the ocean, but either never got back tohether here, or simply grew distant (maybe over some problem between them) and parted company in such a way that their relatedness was quite literally forgotten.
Curtis friend9
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