This reminds Drapes of the Electric light bulb controversy,
The history books will have you believe that Thomas Edison invented the electric light bulb among other things, yet a house not two miles from Drapes was enjoying the benifits of electric light two years before Edison thought of the carbon filiment vacuum bulb.
History as she is writ has great inertia, once something is in the history books, nothing will change it.
There is something called the steam engine and wiggit theory, this states that when its time for the steam engine or wiggit to emerge, ie the technology becomes capable of actually producing some wiggit that people have had in mind for years, said wiggit appears all over the place more or less at the same time.
Television is a example, quite a few were working on radio transmition of images, but old John Logie got the credit, yet his invention in no way resembles modern TV recievers.
Radio is another, Marconi wins the medal, but Tessla was working with radio at more or less the same time, only he didn't call it wireless.