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Over the past week, I have e-mailed 4 people who linked to my family at Ancestry using something they got from a "leaf hint". Problem? None of the 4 links were correct.
My grandparents and great-grandparents census was used for the same year the person who linked to them was in Michigan (while the census was in NY)!
My husband's 3rd great and 2nd great- grands were linked to a person with a dead guy of the same name in their family in Minnesota married to a different person than his wife (they are in NY)
I think you get the idea..... hints are great and can lead you somewhere. However, you need to research the "hint" and make sure it is correct.
I know where my mother's father and grandparents lived in 1900 and what my g-grandmother's name was and that they never left NYC; just like my husband's family has a family bible with a correct marriage for the guy who was posted as being in MN married to someone else.
To any of you who are out there just starting in genealogy or just using the net for it: PLEASE search every item before you stick it up there -- possibly incorrectly -- on the net. I gave data to ONE person 10 years ago with the explicit promise he would not put it on the web, just keep it for his own tree and if the person was mine, contact me. He posted it and I spend hours every time I find a mistake link fixing it with the person who posted it.
Just because you have John Doe born 1815 m. Jane Smith does not mean it is MY John Doe ( esp. when my line is up there with a different wife)
Please CITE, CITE, CITE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you for it from every serious genealogist
Amen to that. Nobody better be messing with my carefully documented trees.
I've had distant relatives write me to say my information is wrong because they think they remember something different their grandmother told them 60 years ago.
I may get clues from sources, but I always research them myself via census, etc. before passing on that data. I have corrected a few people on minor things, I am surprised how accurate my contacts have all been as well. Amazing actually.
Amen to that. Nobody better be messing with my carefully documented trees.
I've had distant relatives write me to say my information is wrong because they think they remember something different their grandmother told them 60 years ago.
I had a previously unknown distant cousin contact me with great enthusiasm as he was sure that part of my family tree was his direct family line - he was right. But he was Canadian and was surprised that a distant ggggrandparent was born in the U.S. according to me.
But he would check with his grandmother. Well, grandma said no way. Wasn't true, wrong family! Well, grannie was wrong. Her (and my) Irish family had settled in Canada, and then a brother and sister married, and moved to NYS together with their spouses. My greatgrandparents stayed, but the brother and his wife returned after four years - after having conceived 3 kids in the U.S.
The various Canadian records in the decade after their return confirm their U.S. birth..........but, no, granny didn't know this evidently, and so this fellow said, thanks anyway, but grannie says, wrong family.
I have found that a number of things my relatives told me about our family were "out of whack." One of them was the details of a notorious double murder, which I learned of as a child.....but in a version that had accidentally, or perhaps on purpose, been reshaped.
You really do have to take these family stories as something more on the order of clues or hints than granite hard truth.
Family stories are not considered primary source material for a reason
I've dealt with many family stories which had a grain of truth, but the majority of the "facts" were wrong.
Regarding sharing and then finding the info. uploaded...I HATE that! I had one guy who did this to me. He would post the info on a site without permission, I would find it and demand its removal. He finally got the very strong warning and has ceased to do this any more.
I always keep an open mind when someone contacts me and says "we may be cousins." I cannot possibly know of every move my ancestors made and am often pleasantly surprised when provided with evidence that they actually were somewhere for a time where I never would have thought to look for them. For years I have been in contact with a Canadian cousin, who contacted me after finding a link between our families. My great-great grandmother came to Philadelphia from Northern Ireland with her husband and their children. I never knew that two of her brothers immigrated to Canada. Now, I have a Canadian cousin, and she in turn has found living relatives in Northern Ireland. She has visited these cousins numerous times and has returned with copies of wonderful antique family photos.
Oh those family stores......... I always heard the same story over and over growing up about my maternal grandfathers mother. How her mother died when she was a baby and they came from Kansas to Texas and the mother is buried in Oklahoma somewhere. Then a few years ago one of my grandfathers brothers says that this "mother" of my g-grandmother is buried in the family cemetary and just a few rows down from my g-grandmother. WT!?!?!?! A cemetary I've tracked thru myself and looked at every single grave that had any of my ancestors last names on the markers and not seen this womans grave. I have found no proof of ANY of the stories being correct and no proof of this mystery person buried anywhere that anyone has said they "heard" or "thought" or "remember taking g-grandmother to visit", etc. in ANY state. I do know for a fact the father of this g-grandmother remarried and found proof of such thru marriage licenses, census records and birth records of siblings.
I understand! When I first started genealogy around 2000, I sent letters to all the older relatives I could find. I printed out family information sheets and asked them to fill in everything they could. I also asked for family stories. The stories were often INCORRECT, but they led me to the correct info, eventually.
I finally just added several relatives to our ancestry tree. I have had their names for several years. Their name is very unusual and very few families in the US have that name. So when I found their info two years ago in the same city as my husbands grandma, I knew they had to be related. But until last week I never had proof, so there names didn't go up on the online family tree until now.
I have had good luck with other researchers. Everyone that has contacted me with info has worked out well. I have had a few people contact me with 'long shots', otherwise its been a good experience for me.
The blessing of this is knowing that many people do tend to cite, and by pushing the issue, maybe the rest of you will all push others to cite... and maybe correct info will pass, no errors.
I have Civil war pension files and tons of family bibles and many, many letters and photos on my side... my husband has family bibles, AGBI files, Rev War records and scholarly texts on lineage on his..... and yet when we have a primary source, people still question it if someone told them differently. I was delighted when a 4th cousin of his corrected me on the year of marriage of a man who is am many generations ago greatuncle; it is the cousin's line and he has the bible off that line. Bibles, birth records, marriage licenses, cemetery records... all good sources.
Personally, I got a photocopy of a news article citing my grandfather and his brother and the sender's ancestor as cousins in an obituary ( it was in the early 1900s from the NY Times); other items sent were copies of letters written to their grandmother from my aunt and grandmother. You get someone sending you a letter your grandmother wrote about you being born and know the handwriting, it is pretty unique. We tracked down other ancestors and discovered their ancestor was the "missing" line of my gggranduncles -- he moved out of state and over 50 years ago, the families lost each other. I now have pics of way back graves on my line from Ireland.
For all here: You know those items about "Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness"? Please make yours to tell people that making a CITATION is #1 in genealogy.
One mistake on citation can be hundreds of errors in trees. If the primary source isn't there, put it down as "TBI" (to be investigated) before you add it.
Love Ancestry for the data; hate them for hints and leafs. That is creating a black hole of tangled knots for genealogists.
Cite Cite, you are absolutely right. No pun intended. We have had the same problem in my family. My Dad paid a reputable genealogist plus tracked thousands of records by hand, microfiche, or whatever. Of course, we found some interesting lies ourselves!!! Cross-checked many times and cited his references. He created a very wonderful document going back to the late 1500's. Along comes some guy from England, who has never been here, will never do any research and he is posting stuff that "he knows" because someone told him. And the beat goes on. He is creating a huge mess for many generations down the line, because he is always posting leaves, and stuff online. It is so frustrating. This guy is a machine, it's ridiculous.
The other group of people I really disrespect are the people who want to borrow the stuff for a few weeks and then return it. Answer no. Why would I lend a Family Bible from 1800 to someone I don't even know, or the autographed copy of ??, and then they have the nerve to be offended. If one knows where to go online, there are actually some great resources...but you need to spend the time and energy doing so.
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