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We have a thread in Psychology where you can post your "1st world problem" of the day, to vent about it, laugh about it, and then move on because it can't be solved.
I want this to be a similar thread for us Genealogy folks.
You know, those little annoyances that most genealogy people will understand, but about which you can't vent to others in your life, because they have no clue. Also recognize that these are by definition "first world problems" so please don't jump in and tell a poster they should not be so upset because there are bigger issues in the world; we know that. Also, please don't try to solve a person's problem unless he/she specifically asks. The purpose of venting is just to get it out and have a few other people say "I hate that too!!!" not to solve anything.
My vent from yesterday would have been:
Agh! That damned 1890 census plagues me again! Once again I am in need of a piece of info that would have been in that census, and probably nowhere else.
My vent for today is:
I have a DNA-cousin match (high confidence) who e-mails me all the time, determined that I figure out how we are related. But his tree is so messed up--He has women in there with their married name instead of maiden name (sometimes even the last name of their second husband) and today he just told me that one of his grandparents was actually unofficially "adopted" and all the generations he has in his tree before that grandparent (back to the early 1700s) are in this adopted family and therefore not related to me (or him) at all. So the months of trying to connect any of those names in that long line to any of my ancestor names were just wasted time. He's like "Oh yeah, Grandpop was unofficially adopted by the XYZ family. Does that matter? But we have to find out how we're related!"
Ugh. I understand choosing to trace the roots of an adopted family (a la "emotional DNA"), but then you should not be so obsessed with DNA matches. And you should put notes in the tree stating that the person was adopted. Even a few months ago, he was sending me lots of info on this adopted line, when they resided in my part of the country, convinced that our connection was in there somewhere. But he FORGOT his Grandpop was adopted????
I'm not really venting. I find this humorous. In doing research, I'm finding a lot of 'not so politically correct' information. And the relatives have asked me to share so I do... including photos, new stories, documents, etc. Recently, we've had discussions on incest, slaves, outlaws, prison, and a Playboy Centerfold who isn't wearing any clothes. My ancestors were an interesting bunch. I know there most have been some everyday, normal people in there. The descriptions 'farmer' and 'wife' from the census records simply does not convey the personality of these people.
I was on a Vermont Historical website today. Looked for census records in one particular town from 1890. It was noted that half of the records had been burned when the basement of the town hall caught fire and the records were destroyed.
So, 13 years later the council members took a vote and decided to burn the other half of the records ! What the heck. May as well make it all unusable. LOL
Location: New Albany, Indiana (Greater Louisville)
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I wish my wife's close cousins that showed up on her Ancestry.com DNA test would reply to our messages. One descends from her grandpa's lost sibling. Another of them appears to have a grandparent with a different parent than they thought, shared matches make it clear which line they share.
AncestryDNA members who link their results to a private tree, then never bother responding to information requests from others. These folks (and there are a hail of a lot of 'em) are more than happy to rummage thru their cousins' public trees to pluck information, but have no interest whatsoever in sharing what they may know. IMO, they shouldn't be able to see matches unless they link to a public tree. AND YES I'M VENTING!!! AND YES, IT P***'S ME OFF WHEN THEY DO THAT!! NOW SEE WHAT YOU'VE DONE BY STARTING THIS THREAD!!! WHERE ARE MY $%**@# NITRO PILLS!!!
AncestryDNA members who link their results to a private tree, then never bother responding to information requests from others. These folks (and there are a hail of a lot of 'em) are more than happy to rummage thru their cousins' public trees to pluck information, but have no interest whatsoever in sharing what they may know. IMO, they shouldn't be able to see matches unless they link to a public tree. AND YES I'M VENTING!!! AND YES, IT P***'S ME OFF WHEN THEY DO THAT!! NOW SEE WHAT YOU'VE DONE BY STARTING THIS THREAD!!! WHERE ARE MY $%**@# NITRO PILLS!!!
I'm wishing that some of my ancestors had been a little more creative with naming their kids. It's kinda hard to decipher who's who (within families and compared to other families) with all of the recycling of Eliza, Elizabeth, Sarah, Mary, Margaret, William, James, John. And when the surname itself is common (Jackson, Edwards, etc.), the frustration mounts.
Way back in the late 1990's geneology was really interesting to me. But if I had a dime for every time a person asks what can they "get" because their gggrandmother was Indian.
Stop! Please, stop!
Or worse, my gggrandmother was a Cherokee princess. Stop! Please! For the love of gawd!!
Got any more of those nitro pills?
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