RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: mofid42 on Monday 06 February 12 18:15 GMT (UK)
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I am wondering what is the best way to approach someone who I know has got their tree wrong from the beginning
I already tried twice last year as politely and gently as I could to tell them that they had the wrong parents so subsequently the rest of the ancestors were incorrect too...(basically my ancestors, not theirs!) Although they replied and told me they were researching for a friend, they took no notice and carried on as before. Consequently they now have generations of my ancestors, their photo's, documents etc all attached to the wrong person.
Should I bother or just leave them to their ignorance?
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You have already bothered, it seems.
I would just ignore them, and concentrate yourself on researching a correct tree.
The worrying thing though is always that in the future people take incorrect trees that people have put on to websites as FACT , as a source, rather than going back to proper records.
You see it already on here when people quote something e.g Jane Bloggs was born in 1822 in Croydon and when you say what was the source, the reply is "a tree on Ancestry" or similar.
The main reason why I never ever will put my tree on to the web! Dont want someone to wrongly attach it to people who are NOT related!
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Hi
This problem is often discussed on here, it's a difficult one. If I were you I would try again, perhaps giving them as much proof as you can as to why you think they are wrong, and saying that you are only telling them as you hate to think that they are wasting time following the wrong family, and that you would be very pleased if someone did the same for you. Once you have done that, if they still ignore it, there isn't a lot you can do. If they are researching for a friend it may be that they have already given them information and now don't want to admit that they were wrong.
If they have a tree on Ancestry there is the opportunity for you to add a comment, you could say on there that it is the wrong family so that others see it.
Jan
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Thanks Liz and Jan
I am frustrated by them. Last year I explained why I knew they had got it wrong as I had documentation etc to back up my research. But they didn't even query what I told them, instead just carried on adding more and more, copying everything from a public tree that belongs to one of my cousins (mines private)
Finally fed up with their behaviour I wrote a comment on their tree stating that the tree was wrong....never heard another thing for months, then today they started working on the tree again, still adding all the wrong people.
I can see why they have gone wrong. Their ancestor has the same name as my ancestor and born about a year before mine but the birth registration for their ancestor is missing from FreeBMD, however it is on FindMyPast. I thought about writting to tell them this information but them wondered why I should bother.
If someone had written to me and told me I had gone wrong I would have taken notice and spent ages double checking everything!
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Just ignore them! You've done your best already and they've taken no notice.
As long as you are sure that your research is correct, you can't solve the rest of the (Family History) world's problems - frustrating as that may be ::) :)
Linda
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I would love it if someone told me something was wrong with my tree. There must be loads of people who see something wrong with a tree but do not say so, in my case I would thank them very much for putting me right. I would hate it if, in the future, some desendant of mine found out that my family tree is a load of rubbish because I did not listen to other people.
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Someone has done that to me. Very tactful. "Do you think...?" "Did you check...?" "What was your source...?"
And, my goodness, he was right! :o
I am sort of disappointed, but pleased to get it all back on track. Trying to uncouple people in FTM and attach them to the right people. ::)
meles
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I came across a web page that someone had put wrong information on. It referrd to a woman as being "married" to the man in whos house she lived for some years. she had several illigitimate children and even though the births were not registered and no records named a father, not even the childrens marriage certificates the web page claimed that the same man married to her was the childrens father. this was very misleading and anyone googling the family name would come across the web page.
I tried to contact the person but was unsuccesful.
Just goes to show you, dont trust other peoples research.
griff
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You can only do so much. I've had this situation recently. The cousin was adamant that he was right and I pointed to compelling evidence that suggested I was right (I am keen to point out that in lots of cases, you don't entirely know for sure and that you are making educated conections based on a lot of factors). Eventually he did see it my way which although I was pleased at, his reply was 'I've decided to put x's parents as y' - no recognition that that was my research!
He is very much a name collector - in the first few weeks that I was in contact with him, I kept getting email notifications that his tree on A******y had new names. It is so much easier at times when you cannot find a rellie to make something up! My tree is on that website but technology got the better of me and thus it is very sparse. I don't mind sharing info with genuine researchers but it has to be a 2 way thing. I wasn't getting anything back from him. I don't see why I should do all the hard work and someone else get the credit for it.
rant over!
sallysmum
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i had a name collector (his wife was related to me) who asked to see my tree on g**** reun***d and he "stole" my whole tree to add to his, even the side that wasn't related in any way. i kept seeing updates every day where he was adding several names and in the end i closed the account. i hate people who do that >:(
griff
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There are parts of my tree that I'm not certain about, and I wish someone else would point out the errors, but like the others, I have lots of people who have copied stuff off my tree and some of it is the stuff I'm not 100% sure about. I have made notes on it saying that I'm not sure, but they still copy it. Just be certain of your own stuff, always check the original records (where you can) and if in doubt, make a note to say that you're not sure its correct. Let everyone else get on with making mistakes!
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I don't mind anyone wandering into my tree provided there is a genuine connection.... somewhere!
I have to admit at times I have got a bit carried away and gone sideways just because I have found something interesting or because I was struggling to find the correct information for nearer connections.
The upside of my nosiness on a couple of occasions has resulted in me being able to help others who had been stuck with their tree. It was nice because we were able to work together and still consult each other from time to time....a happy outcome. Sadly not always the case!
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I have come the conclusion that the person who has copied hundreds of names from our family, likes being linked to us ::)
I have sent him the Parish Records link, and offered certificates of proof that he has mistaken his Elizabeth Eddy from Cornwall for ours. (his is also two years older than ours)......................but it is like water off a ducks back.
It looks good to others because he has copied the photographs and certificates to back up his Tree, from my cousins Tree, but he is definately not related to us. :-\
Ambers
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;D
Well, to answer the question with a touch of an Aussie contribution from me .... you put some details from their Ancestry tree into a thread like this one and then cross your fingers and toes and hope for the best ::)
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,580920.0.html ;D ;D ;D
Cheers, JM
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Hi Jm
Thanks for that link....it did make me laugh ;D I found a tree the other day where it had the two wives of one man married to each other and not him....oh well :-\
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I recently contacted a lovely lady in NZ who had my g/g/aunt in her tree. It turned out she had the wrong girl
My aunt was Sarah Ann, and the lady in question had Harriet Sarah Ann, thinking they were the same person.
I only realised she had the wrong person when viewing her tree, she had my aunt going back & forward to NZ, marrying there and coming back to the UK. My g/aunt was a spinster who spent much of her laters years looking after her elderly father. So it was with a sad heart I contacted the lady in NZ. I explained where I could see her research was obviously wrong & I gave her permission to view my tree with all the photos and certificates on which showed that she had the wrong Sarah Ann.
She was very disappointed that her research was incorrect (she had taken much of this information from another realived in NZ!), but happy that she would now be able to follow the correct person/family. And I am happy to say her tree was amended the same day (in fact almost within the hour).
So not everyone ignores us when we point out that they have attached one of our family. But sadly many do and even documentary evidence will not stop them.
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Hi Plummiegirl
You were lucky as she was obviously a sensible person who cared whether her tree was right or wrong.
:) sadly not everyone seems to bother
I'm sure I have a few iffy records on my tree where I've had to take a leap of faith so I would welcome someone putting me right.
But I've also been in the reverse situation when someone insisted I had got my tree wrong even though I had all the documentation to prove I was right uploaded to my tree for everyone to see! :-\
The person did eventually agree with me and added all the people they had insisted didn't belong on the tree and copied all the documents
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after having my full tree "stollen" i'm careful who i give info too and then only a little bit to steer them in the right direction, i'm sure i haven't got too many wrong uns and i always get documentary evidence where i can, i'd help anyone in any way i can as long as they didn't take advantatge again.
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Recently a friend proudly told me she didn't need to do family history as her uncle had done it all in the 50s and their family went right back to Canute - hmmm! I doubt it - but am saying nothing.
Derby Girl
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I hit a brick wall with my 5th great grandparents. Couldn't find birth records for either so was absolutely thrilled to find them on someone else's tree. Thrill didn't last long though when I saw that only two generations further back they had suddenly become Earls and Lords in Argyll. Believe it or not, the tree actually went right back to 176 BC in Egypt, passing all the Cleopatras and even Jesus Christ himself (through the Virgin Mary's family). There were a couple of other trees which had copied the same information. I sent a message to two of them asking how they had linked my ancestors to the nobility (just in case they were right, fingers crossed). Needless to say, neither of them answered me so presumably its all hogwash. I did, however, (just for the fun of it) draw up a separate tree for my own information (not published) just in case..... (ha ha)
Patricia (my name does of course mean "of noble birth" - just kidding)
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Depends who they are.
A 'I hope you don't mind, but I think..............' can bring very different responses.
Some may thank you for the info and say they will look into it.
Others may want to collaborate in order to gain as much correct information as possible, which is great for both parties.
Then there's the type of person who will not alter their stance no matter how many bricks drop out of the wall onto their head.
Myself, a 5th cousin and an unrelated person (who contacted me knowing I was having problems) are all having issue with someone who just will not listen to anything we have to say regarding wrong information she has put on her tree.
This is info on 3 different families with whom the 'researcher' has no connection at all.
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I've had it quite a lot (mostly related to my one-name study) where other researchers have insisted that what they have is right, even when I know for a fact it's wrong. One of the most amusing instances I had was where one person was claiming that one of their ancestors (George Twyman, if I remember correctly) was from a family in Margate. This amused me as I recognised straight off the mistake and where they'd got it from...it was the mistake I had made myself in my first 6-months of researching, and had been copied directly from my tree on Rootsweb. ::)
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I've been trying very hard to nail a relevant quotation, which goes something like "Nothing gives me more pleasure than being proved wrong" - from Einstein or another of the great physicists, might just have been Feynman.... If someone is unwilling to be proved wrong, their research is not based on fact but on supposition and hearsay.
Now a lot of genealogy does depend on inspired guesses and also on, in Newton's phrase, "standing on the shoulders of giants" - and transcriptions can be wrong too.
I've found these - the first and last ones, to my professional joy, from biologists:
"It is a good morning exercise for a research scientist to discard a pet hypothesis every day before breakfast. It keeps him young." - Konrad Lorenz
"...By far the most usual way of handling phenomena so novel that they would make for a serious rearrangement of our preconceptions is to ignore them altogether, or to abuse those who bear witness for them." - William James
"It is a puzzling thing. The truth knocks on the door and you say, 'Go away, I'm looking for the truth.' and so it goes away. Puzzling." - R. Pirsig
"Theories have four stages of acceptance: i) this is worthless nonsense; ii) this is an interesting, but perverse, point of view; iii) this is true, but quite unimportant; iv) I always said so. -J.B.S. Haldane
Enjoy the controversy!
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Now i very much like that one.....how right youare...got told the other day when i added a couple of stories to a tree that i was completely wrong....fairly bluntly...i wrote back saying i didn't mean to of end anyone (they were by no means mean stories) no reply!!!!! maybe it was ecus i said that my mum actually new her grandfather well and he had told my mum...politely done though...it made me feel better to know that i actually was correct as i had the paper work in front of me as apparently my Great uncle wasn't awarded a certain medal in WW1 but hmm mum had it in her hand again win...inwardley smiling to myself thinking well there is a cousin that can be a very distant one!!!!!
Cheers
Sally
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Found the quotation - not from a scientist as I thought, but a philosopher:
Why should you mind being wrong if someone can show you that you are?
- A.J. Ayer