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Good luck with that. My mother died several months ago. Her obituary rolled out in the wee hours in the local newspaper's online edition. By 7am that morning, two memorials (duplicates) had been created for her. Neither volunteer knew her; one lived about 300 miles away and the other one lived somewhere around 700 miles away. I simply don't get the motivation. After several requests, I was finally able to get management rights to both memorials, requested admin to delete one and cleaned up the errors in the other one.
I am also a contributor to F.A.G. I particularly enjoy being a photo volunteer. I think F.A.G. has wonderful potential, it just feels to me to be terribly out of control. I will use it for hints regarding possible family members, but to even think it carries some iota of credibility is a mistake.
I'm sorry about your mother. That all just seems a bit disrespectful to me and I agree I don't understand the motivation.
I'm sorry about your mother. That all just seems a bit disrespectful to me and I agree I don't understand the motivation.
In all fairness, there are people who are contributors and they are a blessing for the most part. They spend countless hours trying to link families and checking funeral home websites for family names or cemeteries that they are contributors for.
I am sure there are quite a few knuckleheads out there as well, but most of the ones I have interacted with were kind-hearted people who felt they were doing a service by preserving these people's memories in a searchable database.
I would guess that these people simply checked the obits and/or funeral home pages and added those people they found, without any ill-intent whatsoever.
Twenty-some years ago I incorrectly identified the spouse of one of my ancestors (c. 1800). It was a common name (Drake) and there was a large network of researchers and a large Drake database. I discovered my error and notified the database manager because the information was automatically stored there. He quickly corrected the error but not before some Drake researchers sucked up the incorrect information. I spent several months trying to locate and correct those other researchers and most flatly refused saying they got the information from a reliable source and I should mind my own business. When I told them that I was the source they refused to believe me. If they would only re-check the database they would see that the incorrect spouse was removed. The problem now is that they are being used as the source for other researchers.
I would start my own web based tree, like Rootsweb (which is free). Just document everything very very well and make extensive notes detailing where and how you arrived at any genealogical conclusions. As time goes on more people will come along and in theory the ones that care about accuracy will be intrigued as to why yours doesn't match the others. If yours is better documented and your conclusions pretty compelling, then little by little your accurate tree will start to grow and spread.
That is the best you can do, as I can name numerous examples of trees still out there today where pretty well known fallacies are the more predominant version.
Bottom line is many many people are not serious family historians. They just want to fill in that next person, and when they find a tree that does that for them, they take it and run.
Thanks for the suggestions.
I do have everything documented and a few people have picked it up. But, the documented ancestor of these lines had three wives/14 children so there are tons of bad trees out there lol.
The conclusions are basically irrefutable, but it is a bit confusing with three marriages between them, three sets of children, newspaper articles detailing the first husbands death, the remarriage and the children based on a bushwacking incident as told by the Police Chief. Wills, court cases over land, on and on lol. Add the cousin factor which I have seen result in bad stuff when people don't pick it up.
So, I think you're right. I need to do what I was kind of hoping to avoid......explain all the puzzles pieces and how they fit.
The sad thing is I believe the cousin I contacted was a serious researcher. His father was also into genealogy and may even have been the one who made the wrong connection. Maybe that factors into him not wanting to change it. But who knows maybe he's just busy researching all the new family members I gave him so he can say he identified whos in the unknown graves and set up memorials on Find A Grave in the two cemeteries he works on lol!
In all fairness, there are people who are contributors and they are a blessing for the most part. They spend countless hours trying to link families and checking funeral home websites for family names or cemeteries that they are contributors for.
I am sure there are quite a few knuckleheads out there as well, but most of the ones I have interacted with were kind-hearted people who felt they were doing a service by preserving these people's memories in a searchable database.
I would guess that these people simply checked the obits and/or funeral home pages and added those people they found, without any ill-intent whatsoever.
Oh, I agree most of them are well meaning and I especially appreciate the people who photograph the cemeteries as I have made some amazing connections I wouldn't otherwise have made or would have taken me a really long time.
Just a personal thing....seems like they should wait a bit before posting obits for recently deceased where the family hasn't even held a service yet.
Twenty-some years ago I incorrectly identified the spouse of one of my ancestors (c. 1800). It was a common name (Drake) and there was a large network of researchers and a large Drake database. I discovered my error and notified the database manager because the information was automatically stored there. He quickly corrected the error but not before some Drake researchers sucked up the incorrect information. I spent several months trying to locate and correct those other researchers and most flatly refused saying they got the information from a reliable source and I should mind my own business. When I told them that I was the source they refused to believe me. If they would only re-check the database they would see that the incorrect spouse was removed. The problem now is that they are being used as the source for other researchers.
People can be really strange lol!!
I don't have time or inclination to contact thousands of cousins. The main reason I contacted the one I did is he maintains the only website I have come across and its well documented and as far as I saw pretty accurate. Unfortunately, the mistake he made with my grandparents is also well documented albeit with all the wrong documentation so it seems like he knows what he's talking about.
i had a man contact me a while back because he was writing a book on my grandmother's step dad...this step dad was a developer and from what i remember had developed one of the first subdivisions in northern va...we he contacted me since i work on my genealogy and have a blog and he asked me about this man that i really don't know anything about but i told him the family story of my grandmother's bio father, who apparently was a bookie for al capone. well, when my great grandmother became pregnant with my grandmother, he supposedly threw her out of a window because she had a girl, not a boy...she left him, took her baby with her and eventually married this other man...well the book writer would not believe my story that this man was not my grandmother's bio father because he just could not believe that her "step father" who was so well to do, and they were a pretty family picture...he just couldn't believe that she had this in her background and kept arguing with me...these stories were told to me by my mother...her mom was the daughter raised by this developer....anyways...i wish i could find out more on my bio great grandfather...the story goes that he was killed by capone's guys...i do have a death cert for him in lousiville, in a hotel room...gunshot to the head...ruled as a suicide. genealogy is so interesting...
anyways...all that to tell you yes, there is so much fake info out there! i do copy a lot of it and then mean to go back and see what proof i can find on the stuff that has been added to me tree! good luck!!
For sure its interesting.
I have a couple of family members who were murdered and was able to find newspaper articles about the murders and the trials. One was a work place violence incident in 1900, proving people have been going postal for a long time!
The other was an uncle returning from the Civil War, his wife had been having an affair and her father along with a hired hand and former slave killed his son-in-law and buried him in woods to rid his daughter of her now inconvenient husband. Its alleged the mother-in-law was aware and that he also poisoned his granddaughter who made some remarks indicating she was aware her grandfather killed her father!
The couple of suicide's I've seen are only supported by the death certs. Still you might want to search for news articles as you never know.
Location: New Albany, Indiana (Greater Louisville)
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I am a Find A Grave contributor but I only add family members whose cemeteries are not recorded, many are buried in small cemeteries on the side of a mountain. I do understand why someone who maintains an entire cemetery with thousands of burials add people from obits, it's the best way to accurately keep records updated. I sympathize with the 1% of family members who do anything at all with their loveds page. I created a page for a beloved aunt and two young cousins who died in a car crash when I was 5 and were buried on my uncle's farm. An aunt who is very territorial about that stuff that threw a fit until I took their memorials down. She then threw a fit until I took all family photos of that side of the family off my ancestry.com tree. Since it's family it's irritating but I do wonder about the legality of taking pictures of someone else's tombstone.
There is all kinds of false information in family trees. I have tried to contact a few people about errors or try to compare notes. Very few people even reply to my messages, I forget about it and I just move on. When someone has contacted me about errors, I have been responsive. I appreciate when people take the time to point out an error in my family trees.
Now, I just see false info on many family trees as noise and verify best I can with my own research.
I am a Find A Grave contributor but I only add family members whose cemeteries are not recorded, many are buried in small cemeteries on the side of a mountain. I do understand why someone who maintains an entire cemetery with thousands of burials add people from obits, it's the best way to accurately keep records updated. I sympathize with the 1% of family members who do anything at all with their loveds page. I created a page for a beloved aunt and two young cousins who died in a car crash when I was 5 and were buried on my uncle's farm. An aunt who is very territorial about that stuff that threw a fit until I took their memorials down. She then threw a fit until I took all family photos of that side of the family off my ancestry.com tree. Since it's family it's irritating but I do wonder about the legality of taking pictures of someone else's tombstone.
A tombstone in a public cemetery is fair game for a photo I think.
Your aunt is weird.
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