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My sister, who has been using Ancestry.com and doing our genealogy for years, has run into the same issues. She also started off trying to correct people who didn't care, so she just ignores them. She has found people listed generations before their parents were born, etc.
I think, as someone said, it's garbage in, garbage out. If you aren't careful, you're going to put together nothing but crap.
Exactly. This is what I meant when I said I hardly even look at other people's trees anymore. When I first started out, they could give me clues or leads to follow and confirm/deny myself. But I think I've outgrown most of them now so I don't even bother to look at them. My tree is what matters to me. Why should I care what other people do with their trees? If their trees are incorrect, that's their problem, not mine.
Good post and I agree. My paternal ggrandmother is all over the internet under the wrong parents, despite the fact that the real parents name appears with several grandchildren. But the person that put it down originally posted it on the internet and a bgillion people picked it up with out any soucing or verification. It bothered me at first but not now. Who cares.
I do it for my own edification and for my grandchildren to someday maybe have an interest in where they came from.
I find there are a lot of "name collectors" out there. They add names to their trees without verifying the details and call themselves genealogists.
I have an ancestor who appears in several trees as both Flora Therese and Kora Kerese. I have her birth/baptism record and it is really hard to read which of those is actually correct. Some trees have her both as Flora with her birth date and Kora with her baptism date as her birth date. Based on the birth date of the child following Flora, it is mathematically impossible for Flora, Kora and the next child to exist. I could correct these others but I don't. If they were serious, they'd have done the research themselves.
For my part, I look at other trees for clues, but don't put anything on my trees until I have verified it.
Been there, done that. Tired of seeing ancestors who are 6 years old being married and having children. Tired of my grandfather having 2 wives and an illegitimate son - when he was married to one woman all his life. But . . . there's nothing I can do. I wrote to these folks and, evidently, they're just fine having wrong info. I made my tree private from the get go, but I have responded to everyone who has emailed me with questions. In fact, just lately one lady wrote to me (we have the same Great-Grandmother, although different Great-Grandfathers) and she's positively delightful. Without A.com, I never would have "met" her or found additional info.
Focus on the positive, focus on YOUR tree and what you're learning and taking from your own family history and your own work. Forget about the rest of those crazies out there who clearly are not serious about it. Oh, yeah, and come here to vent any time you want!
I just pruned a branch out of my tree. It was sad to see it go, since it had some interesting people in it, but who really wants counterfeit ancestors? But DNA has conclusively shown that my branch of the family is not related to the people I thought it was. I now have a large gap in my father's side of the family. The good news is that DNA does point to possible connections elsewhere.
I looked, and there are about 450 trees on Ancestry.com that need to do the same pruning, and there is no mechanism to let people know about it. There is a post in the forum for the surname that explains it, but there are no responses to that post.
Anyone here with Barrons in your American trees should check it out. You are likely not related to the "Barrons of Burnchurch."
After reading all this, I went back and revisited some trees on Ancestry.com that I hadn't looked at for awhile. Well, I'm sure glad I read the complaints here and other places first! Yep, one of my great grandma's has been hijacked! Lol, oh lawdy. This one is odd in that, the researcher did source grandma. Only trouble is, she took my grandma's obit and twisted the heck out of it. The obit referenced a married sister of my grandma's with the researcher's needed maiden surname, a very common surname (and the obit is out of state for her family to boot). People from this lady's own family have been leaving comments telling her it's wrong, but she's not listening to them. She has proof, they don't, end of story on her part. I left my comments with some different sources, so we shall see if she listens. It's funny, because I got so excited at first because she had a picture of grandma when she was younger (I'm short on pictures). Too bad, it's the wrong person. So far, it's been copied about three times. I'm hoping that since this lady does appear to be trying to source, her light bulb will go off and she will correct her tree. Mean time she's dragged one whole wing of my family into the wrong tree. Not much I can do but laugh.
I decided to look through family trees just to see how many of my family members have been hijacked. I already knew my maternal grandmother had been hijacked.
So I search for paternal gg-grandfather. I find him on 2 family trees married to my gg-grandmother. Their years of birth have been changed. However, they are married to each other and living in my hometown. My gg-grandmother was 24 in 1874. My gg-grandfather33. Wow. The offenders have them born in 1874.
I also found my paternal grandfather a tree. I also find my paternal gg-grandmother on yet another family tree. Check this out - It's the SAME offender. She has my two relatives listed here PLUS my maternal grandmother ON HER TREE. I've even communicated with this person letting her know that she was mistakened in one area. I only had the trial membership so I cannot "see" her tree anymore. But it looks like she hijacked my tree and added the info to her tree. I'm going to search for my father and I bet I find him on her tree, too.
UGH.
Yes, she basically snatched my entire tree.
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