RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: mofid42 on Friday 01 June 12 19:11 BST (UK)
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I'm just curious to know how many of you take the time to point out errors that others have made with their research, especially when they have wrongly added your ancestors to their tree, or do you just ignore it?
I ask because a very good cyber friend of mine is having problems with someone at the moment who has wrongly added her ancestors to their tree and regularly copies photos and documents that my friend adds to her tree. But no matter how many times my cyber friend has sent polite messages to the other tree owner trying to explain their error its just not penetrating. All she gets in return are messages telling her she is being rude and mean and the whole point of family history is to share information. Understandably my friend is getting quite upset, confused and frustrated.
My friend purposefully keeps her tree public because she is more than happy to share and doesn't mind others copying items or information, but this person really is beginning to bother her!!
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My first instinct is to say "Yes", but of course we have no control over what others do. I do sympathise with your friend, the same thing has happened to me (and no doubt to many others), but I have ony had polite replies and messages of thanks for identifying their error.
I think it is their loss, not your friend's, as they do not want to know that they are entering incorrect lineage in their tree.
It is possible that somewhere along the line someone else, distantly connected, will point out their errors. Then they will have the problem of amending their tree, which could be really traumatic for them (serves them right!).
Please send my condolences to your friend, and suggest that she simply ignores this nuisance person.
giragffe
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Hi mofid42,
I recently contacted the owner of a tree on ancestry because they had my 3x great grandparents on his tree, he replied me back saying they were not connected to his tree so I replied back that he should remove them >:( I find this to be a common problem. I would not put anyone on my tree without proper documents to prove they are in my tree line.I feel for your friend also.
adeline b
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If it is a serious researcher who has made a mistake I would contact them. If it is clearly a work of fiction I stay well away from them so they nare not tempted to copy more of my genuine info. I have an American fiction artist who has one of my Northumbrian relatives who died in WW1 in her tree with US parents and birthplace. I know he is mine and he is English. He was born in Amble, has a headstone there and I have his widow's penny in my cupboard. Not planning to tell the plagiarist that though.
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Thank you all for your replies, I will pass on your sympathies to my friend as I know she is feeling very fed up at the moment.
I do understand what my friend is going through as its happened to me too. Someone has wrongly added dozens of my paternal ancestors to her tree. I've tried pointing out her mistake via messages and even left comments on her tree but nothing made any difference, instead she just carried on adding more and more including photos that she took from my cousins public tree.
In the end I got so frustrated I decided to research her true ancestors for her! I built a tree which I left public hoping one day she will find it and realise her mistake....don't know if she has spotted it yet, possibly not as she hasn't changed her tree although she's obviously signed in many times since I built the tree.
Actually I quite enjoyed doing her tree as there was some interesting characters including the career criminal who was a right rogue!!!
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I passed on all your sympathies to my friend and she has just messaged me back to say thank you
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So on another genealogy site there is a group being very helpful to someone in looking for her mother. However one of the surnames is one of my surnames and one of the posts contains conjectures about my grandmother which are scurrilous, untrue and I suppose if Granny were alive would be libellous. Sometime ago I wrote and told the poster she was very much mistaken but have been completely ignored. I really do not like this being out there but is there anything else I can do about it? Hannah
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That is awful HannahB, you must be really upset.
I just cannot understand this growing phenomenon of people who are Ancestor Stealer's. Surely the whole point of researching your family history is to make sure its accurate and it is YOUR ancestors you are adding to your tree.
Yet nine times of ten when you contact these people who have wrongly added your ancestors to their tree to inform them of their error, ask politely for them to remove the information and any photos and documents they have copied, they either ignore you or if they do reply simply accuse you of being rude and selfish before carrying on as if nothing has been said. Never once do they query why you think they have made an error.
And sadly there doesn't seem to be anything we can do about it.
There is a public tree on a well known genealogy website that has my grandfather, his siblings, parents, aunts and uncles,grandparents and their photos all attached to the wrong family. If it wasn't for the fact the website hides information about living people I may well have found myself attached to the tree too!!!....and did the tree owner care when I pointed out their error....not one bit as it wasn't even their family tree, they were doing it for someone else!!.
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Much as I sympathise, having had my tree scrumped in the past. Now private.
There is the 'problem' with Ancestry whereby you get 'hints' for family members, now I have found that many people just add these hints to people in their trees without actually checking to see if the hint refers to the same person.
This happened recently with my g/grandfather who had a very unusual middle name and I found him listed with sons & daughters married to some strange woman in someone elses tree.
I contacted this person, informed them that they had the wrong man, explained I had documentary evidence & photographs to back up all I had told them.
They came back thanked me and said they would amend their tree which they have.
But I still have a family member on an Australian Tree, she never left the country, never married the man in their tree, again I have this time provided copies of the documents, but although they accept that they are in the wrong, they have not amended their tree.
Their loss. If you do not make your tree private, I would suggest that you add 1 fictitious person, with a sufficiently unusual name and then see how many scrumpers pinch this name. ;D
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My tree is already private and has been for a couple of years because of tree scrumpers.
The person who has taken my grandfather and his family must have acquired the information and photos from other public trees with whom I've shared in the past. As they haven't actually taken anything directly from my tree I can't really ask them to remove anything, just persist in trying to point out their error by leaving comments on their tree. Hopefully anyone in the future seeing those comments won't make the same error.
What I am finding difficult to understand is the mentality of these ancestor stealers. They simply just don't seem to care whether they have got it right or wrong. When someone in the past questioned my research, insisting I had got it wrong, although I was 100% certain I was right as I had documentation etc to back it up, I still spent half the night double checking everything just in case I was wrong.
Researching my family history is important to me, and its accuracy even more so, I certainly would not be able to take any pleasure or pride in a tree that is total nonsense!!!
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I have done, in the past, but having been told quite strongly that I'm wrong (despite having the relevant documentary evidence), I probably wouldn't in the future. Unless they were an RC'er, of course!
;) ;D
The view I take now is that it is a hobby, for my own personal interest, and if someone else wants to have my great grandmother's family living in the USA when she was actually born in Dorset, well, that's up to them, and no loss of mine.
I actually find it quite funny, and I certainly don't worry about it.
:) :)
'Hat.
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Researching my family history is important to me, and its accuracy even more so, I certainly would not be able to take any pleasure or pride in a tree that is total nonsense!!!
I think that sums up the difference between people who genuinely want to find out about their family and those who just want to be able to boast that they have their tree back to 1066 and have found 50,000 relatives. It doesn't matter what evidence you give the latter, they will never change their tree.
I have some one who added a middle name to my grandfather in order to make him fit her tree. When I pointed it out, she admitted that is what she had done, but I see it is still there. That is her problem, not mine.
It is annoying and in the case of "stolen" photos upsetting, but apart from making your tree private or never putting any information on to the internet there isn't a lot you can do.
Jan
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I would want to know.
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One of my cousins added an English line to our family because he got frustrated trying unsuccessfully to make headway with our Irish line. He applied the "fiddle factor" to make this seem correct. I find this very annoying as all the younger generation will grow up believing something that is not true.
Hopefully they will have the wisdom to check the details and eventually remove the spurious family.
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I would want to be told too if I had mistakes - although I have been told before and it turned out the person correcting me was wrong and they got quite stroppy when I told them (even though the person concerned was my mother and they were trying to tell me she died 3 years before I was born).
I don't really mind people stealing my rellies - although I think its a shame when they are wrong cos they are cheating themselves of their own heritage and if passing it on to other family members theirs too. I would mind if they were stealing my photos though .. I do think that people should ask the tree holder for permission before doing so!
There are a few trees with some of my ancestry on that I know to be wrong in parts and I have messaged them with no response - I'm guessing these people have lapsed their subscriptions/haven't bought one so can't message which might also account for the scrumping as they wouldn't have to pay to look at the documents for themselves. I have also noticed a tree which is obviously taken from one of mine as they have exactly the same comments I have made about a certain gentleman who I believe had a double identity but haven't found anything solid to prove it.
I do admit I have scrumped myself though - having reached as far as I could get online with my ex husbands family I found 100s of trees through "hints" that continued right back on a famous Prideaux line that is evidently well documented but I still dabble looking for my own documentation to back some of it up and continue with more recent (1600 onwards) myself
For my OWN line I prefer to do the work, however frustrating and brickwalling it is, myself - apart from being a really interesting and absorbing hobby it does give you a more personal connection to the people you find.
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I think some people don't reply because they don't like it being pointed out to them that it is wrong. As it's easy enough to see if the person has recently logged into their ancestry account from their profile, it's therefore possible to confirm the likelihood they've read the message.
I've come across this several times recently as several ancestry trees have incorrectly listed our mutally shared ancestor Sarah Haydon as dying in1862 in Southwark. Now one tree shares her second family with me, the others descend from her first marriage and don't even show the second marriage. Therefore they have obviously just added a death hint that has appeared from someone else's tree. Sarah actually is buried under her first married name in 1833, and therefore does not appear with her second husband on the census in Southwark which I was informed was her. For some reason her second husband appears to have done a runner and she is buried as the widow of her first husband (although where her first husband is buried is anyone's guess). I know this has to be the correct second marriage because firstly the death age ties in with the baptism date (and there is no other in the area), secondly she is listed as a widow marrying in the neighbouring parish but returns to her normal one to have two further children, and thirdly a grandson from her second marriage died along with one of his brothers in Australia and incorrectly listed their mother's maiden name as their grandmother's first married name on his brother's death certificate. As their mother remarried and listed her correct father's surname, they obviously got confused.
Did I get any response to my messages, well one replied and said he was sure it was the couple in Southwark, but has failed to respond when I sent him the specific details and as far as I know his tree is still inaccurate. The other's ignored me. All had logged into ancestry after I sent them a message/note on their tree. Their loss is all I can say. ::)
Not everyone with a link back to 1066 is a name collector, I have one which has been maticulously checked by me, and not just from published pedigrees which can be notorious for errors.;)
Nicola
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There seems to have been a big increase in this nonsense lately, and Mundia.com seems to be the major culprit.
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oh pants I just joined Mundia 10 minutes ago :(
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I had no knowledge of the existence of the Mundia site until someone pointed it out last year on a FB group I belong to.
It actually caused much panic at the time because the person was suggesting that if your tree was private on A* it would be public on Mundia and if we wanted to change this open an account with Mundia then deactivate it making sure you set your tree to private before doing so.
However I read the blurb on the Mundia site which seemed to be saying that a private tree on Ancestry would also be private on Mundia but after following the instructions on how to deactivate my Mundia account it asked if I wished to make my tree private before doing so.
Now I am confused what is the truth.....was my private tree on A* also private on Mundia or was it not, or is it now only private because I set it that way before I deactivated my account?
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This morning I just had to put a comment in the box on an Ancestry Tree. I knew that my ggggrandfathers mother was called Elizabeth.Yes the tree had an Elizabeth but looking at her date of birth she would have been 54 when she gave birth and my one was one of the eldest of many children.On the same tree a chap who had died pre 1800 was on the 1851 census. I think that just goes to prove that little thought was put into this tree before putting it on line.
Ringrose
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being told can save a lot of wasted effort researching the wrong tree. So I'd say yes. But if you get a rude response perhaps just leave them to waste their time..?
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I've just read through all this and it makes me more determined than ever to stick to my decision never to put any of my research online at all. OK, it means I am making life more difficult for myself and probably missing out, but Hey Ho, my research is safe. I will share info with genuine enquirers and help where I can. I have politely queried a few online trees showing errors in my own lines, and been effectively told to get lost!
People want instant trees, rather than accurate well-documented results. it's sad really......
Melbell.
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I understand your concerns Melbell, but how do you expect any of the genuine enquirers to find you if you never put anything online?
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I have made good contacts through Family History Societies, Interest Lists, One-Name Study Groups, etc. Also, I have initiated contacts in the same way, or perhaps by picking up on people's email addresses by googling, visiting discussion boards (like lovely Rootschat!) and so on. This means I can pick and choose, and avoid (most) daft intrusions into my trees.
Melbell
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Craclyn
If you put your tree on Genes Reunited no-one can access your details without your permission
On Ancestry you can have either a Public or Private tree. I have a private tree, so when someone does a search and a match is made with my Private tree, the researcher is advised to contact me.
Simples
Plums
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Hei Plums,
I already have my tree on GenesReunited. I was just a little curious as to those who don't publish anything expect to establish contact with others. They must miss out on a lot if nobody can find them :)
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like Melbell, I don't have a tree online.
I make contact through bulletin boards (Rootschat etc) and finding details on other online sites
eadaoin
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There are many many Trees on Ancestry which I find have such obvious errors in them!Unless they concern any of my relatives,quite frankly I could spend literally hours contacting people on Amcestry to point out these errors.
It does however raise one of the most basic rules of research;Never accept someone else's research at face value,always check it out for yourself.
Regards
William Russell Jones.
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Thanks Eadaoin - I don't feel so alone in my attitude any more! I cannot but agree with WR Jones (without sounding like a dinosaur): the old back to basics research is the only 100% trusty method really, however much we all love using the internet to help us on our way.
However, I respect other people's methods and realise that - let's face it - we all have massive problems accessing the original records most of the time!
Melbell.
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I have told some people before but sometimes it falls on deaf ears, what is worse is those that have copied parts of my tree before I learned of errors I had without citing sources so it is just more false information out there.
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If it is a serious researcher who has made a mistake I would contact them. If it is clearly a work of fiction I stay well away from them so they nare not tempted to copy more of my genuine info. I have an American fiction artist who has one of my Northumbrian relatives who died in WW1 in her tree with US parents and birthplace. I know he is mine and he is English. He was born in Amble, has a headstone there and I have his widow's penny in my cupboard. Not planning to tell the plagiarist that though.
Recently I found 6 trees which had my great grandfather in them, and all had his parents wrong (they were born after him!!!) and when I contacted them all to let them know of the error, they all denied having him in their tree. I have put this down to a glitch on Ancestry, and now I just ignore people who have the wrong information. I know that my information is correct so I reckon it's up to them if they want to continue with wrong information in their trees.
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Funny enough i've about the same amount of people giving wrong names for gg grsndparents i left them alone i was fed up of pointing ovious errors out.It was obvious one lot had gone wrong and the others copied/I notice no one copied the right ones! Somone connected my tree to a baroness. At that point i made my tree private. If they want to follow wrong lines that's their problem i've decided.
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I don't think these tree owners do any of their own research they just copy from other people. I've noticed trees that have people with similar names to people in my, or my husband's, tree, but they have them married to the wrong people, or as Ancestry's default seems to be USA, they have them living and dying in places in USA with similar names to places in UK. I even found one - nothing to do with any of my ancestors I just noticed it one day - that has someone dying on D-day on Normandy Beach, Ocean, New Jersey, USA :o
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I noticed one day that someone had strangely attached my 3x Gt grandparents, who spent their entire lives living in London UK, as the parents of a child born in Manchester UK.
Not only did they have an entirely different surname to their "child", the tree owner also had the child living his life in Manchester UK but mysteriously dying in Manchester Jamaica!
I am guessing the death place was a mistake most likely due to Ancestry's preference for place names from their side of rhe pond in the drop down menu, but I can't begin to image why the tree owner chose to add my 3xGt grandparents to their tree! ???
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... I have a family tree on A***y which was public but was forced to turn into a private setting. The reason being, I had a person starting to copy all of my ancestors including photos, documents, onto their tree and when I checked their tree, they had 20,000 odd people listed! I contacted A and they weren't a bit interested. That, I just don't get!
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Surely the whole point of researching your family history is to make sure its accurate and it is YOUR ancestors you are adding to your tree.
Brace yourselves here but this may upset the more sensitive souls out there:-
Some research was done which found that about 1 in 20 of the fathers stated on birth certificates wasn't actually the real father. This means that the further you go back in time there will be an ever increasing number of people on your tree who are not biologically related to you, even if you have got the correct "theoretical" line. The only lines you can really be certain of are your paternal and maternal lines which can be verified by DNA.
Scary huh? I sort of think of all of my "middle" lines as giving an overall fuzzy picture of how things were, but take any one line with a pinch of salt, especially as you get further and further back in time!
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Hi I often do point out errors but there has been an ocassion were I thought they had got it wrong but in fact I had and they helped lead me in the right direction .its useful to point out things your unsure of as it helps U and them .im more then happy if someone wants to correct me as i want to find my TRUE ancestors not the wrong ones otherwise what's the point in doing a tree
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I`ve just had to correct someone for whom I have great respect. They have done an enormous amount of research on the family members who emigrated but have almost nothing on the ones who stayed in England, including my G.Father and G.Grandmother . I have beeen able to fill in a good number of gaps.
I was notified that more people had been added to the family tree but was surprised to see some elementry mistakes, for example three people included in a family when at the 1911 census they were many miles away. In any case the true family had only two children, not five.
I thanked them for the extra info but asked a polite quesrion as to wndering why the family had some members in one place and others in another when they were all young children?
.As a result all the family have been removed , which is a shame as four are really connected and true relations, more to me than the person doing the extended tree, being my father`s aunt, uncle and first cousins
. To the tree compiler they are the neice, nephew by marriage and great neices of their great, great, great grandfather. Now they have all been removed even the correct ones. I`ll have to send another message although I did make it clear who were O.K and who not ,albeit in a friendly way .
Perhaps when they have time to look at things again they will see both errors.
This does not really affect me but as has been pointed out if things are not 100% accurate they are valueless. Viktoria
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I pointed out some errors in someone's tree, relating to descendants of my 3 x g.grandfather somehow joining up with that person's ancestors. The person I contacted was very grateful and said he'd just copied the information from other trees on Ancestry and hadn't realised they had the wrong information. As I had all the BMD certs, I knew my info was correct, but it just shows that what some people call research, is just copying without knowing whether it is right or wrong.
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Its all good fun though isnt it? ....... I subscribe to ancestry but have no tree there but appreciate what they provide in the 'factual' areas such as 'probates' or 'land tax' and similar from which I have gleaned a lot of vital information for my own needs.
When I say I have no tree on ancestry it is not quite true as there is one there but stolen from genes R a few years ago which,when I discovered it, I put in a spurious name and that tree has gone off in all directions much to my ongoing amusement.
Dont take it too seriously.
Joe
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I have recently been in touch with someone who I am quite certain has incorrect information on her tree. I have birth, death and marriage certificates, a newspaper article relating to a coroner's inquest and electoral registers. I have spent a considerable amount of money buying certificates to back up research whereas this person has only based her information on Census data up to 1911 and a marriage certificate that is online. The marriage certificate does have an error, that being the groom's father's name has been incorrectly written. William Thomas instead of Thomas William and that has major problems for this person in her tree. We have exchanged several emails and I have posted material ($18 postage paid for this) to back up my research and still we are at odds as to who has the correct information. After much thought, I have finally sent away for a certificate that will most certainly show that the person who she believes is her great grandfather actually died aged 12 years.
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Only yesterday I contacted an Ancestry member about a tree on which my great great aunt had the wrong parents.This member was grateful as the tree was dated back to being done in the 1980s and he was puzzled by it.Anyway I have proof of the right parents and an now in contact giving him the right info with BMDs
Ringrose
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Came across an online tree the other night which explained what happened to a 'missing daughter' Marie J___ (I only had her in census with parents). Marie to have married and had lots of children, details of husband and children included on tree and I got quite excited... until I saw the 1891 census entry. Ummm, husband had 4 stepsons with same surname as Marie. Yes, husband married a Marie J___ (I think a widow) who had 4 sons. 'My' Marie J___ is still missing.
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fastfusion passes a coin.... give it a flip...
heads u tell them
tails u dont
some folk will appreciate it that u have found an error... some will ignore you, and claim u are wrong...
the others will make comments back that will make u wonder as to whether u should have borthered in the first place and to humble old me .... well if its wrong its wrong and if the proof is there most sensible rational decent warm kindhearted folks will listen to rational reasoning of proof... i best not discribe the others
:)
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I found out that someone (in the USA) had copied a photo of my Gt uncle who had died in WW1 to their tree, different name.
When I contacted them they apologised and explained that they thought my relative looked like a really nice guy and as their ancestor had been in the RFC they thought it would be nice to 'humanise' him and give a face to him! They did delete it though.
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Can i Just say that I was contacted by someone after I added a photo to my tree, in good faith and after much research and it turned out to be no relation, just the same name :-[. They had gone to all the trouble of finding a record of my relation which proved my information was wrong but also confirmed other information about the rest of my family was correct so I was very grateful to them.
I thanked them for their help and was happy to remove the photo and other information so now my tree is as true as possible.
We all make mistakes at times and hopefully learn from them. I look at other trees now but don't add anything unless I have my own proof.
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I had details of my 3x g.grandfather on my Ancestry tree and I was contacted by a distant relative telling me that I was 3 years and 3 miles out with his date and place of birth -and, of course all his ancestors were wrong as well!
I checked the facts with the help of Rootschat and found that she was correct.
Not only was I able to correct my tree, I also made contact with a relative who lives in the area of our ancestors and is able to visit the PRS whereas I am 250 miles away and researching online.
So -I reckon you should always tell someone about their errors but don't waste time with loads of details and documents. If they are interested they'll contact you for more information -and they ought to pay for copies and postage too!
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Tonight I found my great grandmother with totally the wrong parents on Ancestry.....the births of the few children mentioned wrong .Although born in London her parents were Scottish with a strange spelling of her surname.Having in my possession the BMDs I know Im right and feel so annoyed that someone has really put down impossible names for parents.This person really has to only look at censuse to get the family.
I was so annoyed I put a comment on th page.
Ringrose
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I realised that the death/burial information I had for someone on my tree was incorrect so the person might still be alive. It was a pain trying to convince someone who had hoovered up my tree that they needed to change their details for this person because they might be alive.
Blue
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Hmm well, after reading all these replies I thought I'd better email when I found my grandmother married off to the wrong man on someone's Ancestry tree.
The problem with Ancestry hints is that it's very easy to link up people with very similar names. Some of the errors are obvious -children supposedly born after the death of their mother, for example and you wonder why people don't check.
However some errors are easily made, the marriage that wasn't my grandmother's took place 10 years after her marriage, but the town and the bride's name were both the same.
My family also -like many others I imagine, had the habit of repeating the same names in various combinations through the generations ,so William Joshua begat Joshua William, while his brother Samuel George had George Joshua and William Samuel and I won't begin to mention the variations on Mary Ann.
Didn't they think of the poor genealogists of the future!
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What is important is that you are confident that your own efforts are correct and that you have the appropriate records.
We are all likely to have areas that we are uncertain about and the best thing to do is raise them on rootschat where there are so many people who are experts at ferreting out information in places that you would never believe.
I,personally, would not tell anyone that their tree is incorrect as it may lead to an argumentative state which is unpleasant at any time.
Just 'plug on' and maintain 'your 'objective and disregard anything that you know is wrong or suspect.
Joe
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I just had to respond to this one! For centuries a member of my family tree has been linked to a famous person and it is really not true. But responses include-we do not want to know any of the info other than that info that will help prove this relationship. This info is even included in an obit from 1899. And this info is in most family bios I can find for the family. And more importantly a book written in the 1890's that most family members refer to. I am just going to point out who this concerns because the story of the search for her real parents is a book in itself! Elizabeth Morton said to be the dau of the signer of the Declaration of Independence even though a google search for this important man will show you his dau Elizabeth died of consumption UNMARRIED. Then the book Wakefield Memorial (she married a Wakefield)states she is the niece of the signer. He was an only child-his father died while he was in his mothers womb! None of this matters and now I am told that the identity of the signer is merely speculation and that his dau died unmarried is also speculation! So for lets say for 2 centuries this has been attached to her as family. And hundreds of family trees in ancestry, familysearch, and archives have this information in them. And yes I have contacted organizations affliated and disproved it and now I am suppose to get in touch with the National Historical Organization-per a moderator and I do not know what good that would do! fruitytooty
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Yes.
This really bothers me. I'm just a beginner in the world of family history research but sometimes I feel like slapping my head at some of the family trees that pop up under hints in Ancestry.
In one, it actually had both my parents names in it listed as deceased (my parents are very much alive and in their 40's) with 6 children! I humorously contacted the person to ask them if they knew a big family secret I didn't and where where my 3 mysterious abandoned sisters...I didn't hear anything back for a few months but they eventually came back to me and said they were sorry and deleted things off their family tree.
For me, I do look at other peoples trees because they may have had access to information I haven't come across yet. So I get really excited when I see someone else has my furthest back ancestor and has parents for them. If it's not apparent where they got their information from I send them a polite message asking them how they got back that far...only to be really frustrated when I get a "Uhhh...well I just counted back twenty years and then attached this Knox in a similar area because they have the same name as one of the kids (when the name is John)". I've got one person whose got all the kids in a generation right, but then has the father listed at different addresses in different localities all over Durham, Scotland, Berwick, Newcastle and Northumberland...without the wife or kids, with a different occupation and different named parents every 10 years. It boils me because really, it's not too hard to compare information on a census and if you have the kids names, surely you'd be looking to see where they were? And bingo - there's the father listed at the same address! It's not rocket science!
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The way I look at it is, some of the official information recorded is based on an/the individuals memory who is supplying that information to the recorder. Memories can be flawed. To err is to be human, to worry about it is pointless. Recorded history is just the memories of the person recording it, or the account being supplied to the person recording it, accurate or not. How many contradictions of the accounts from the last 100 years have been turned on their heads after official documents have been released under the guise of official secrets. We will never know.
Regards
Malky, or am I!!!! You have only me to believe.
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I've come across a couple recently where they have the person's death in 1895 including the burial and then,miraculously, they have them alive in the 1901 and 1911 census. That shows people just attach things without looking at what they have previously.
I must admit, I've given up telling people now. As long as I'm sure that my tree is as correct as I can get it that is all I'm worried about.
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i made several mistakes at the beginning and then amednded them - my neice has done a tree as well and put my grandmothers last totally incorrect.
i probably still make mistakes.
But, sometimes i think people are just testing things then they change things and amend them - so long as you are testing things you can change your people from time to time - i put a whole family in the other day to 'test' only to realise its the wrong ones
there are also so many parellel families - i know 2 people living in the same street same name lets say for arguments sake it was diggle totally unrelated and got married
its easy to get mixed up
so long as you know your own tree is correct i wouldnt bother wasting time unless its about your parents like the other lady just said
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There is a tree on ancestry that copied details and certs of my g.grandparents and gg.grandparents. They have one my grandaunts married to an incorrect person. the place where they married was on her tree. I contacted this person and exchanged a couple of emails explaining what was wrong. I even purchased the correct marriage cert for her and sent it to her. she still has not amended her tree. so I have deceided just to leave it be. The tree has 7500 people in it. It would appear that some people like to gather names ???
But about two weeks ago I saw this same tree owner on rootschat giving advice to other people............ makes you think. I personally don't put anything on my tree unless I have documentated proof the info is correct.
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yes, i think that people should not copy your pics without permission someone did this to mine as it was public - i have been talking to some people in america who were relatives so i was ok with that and i copied theirs. So i was ok with my distnat cousins doing that it was fine.
but someone else copied my mums pic and then my nans and i have never spoken to them and their tree was wrong it had 740 people in it
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I have had one woman bring to my attention the actual death date for the brother of my great-Grandfather, but at the time I didn't take any attention to it as I had been told he died in England and not Canada. It wasn't till I found some ships passenger documents with his name, and the name of his father, that I paid attention. Finding this out took me onto the name of his wife and his eventual death date and location.
I don't mind seeing others making mistakes, but I suppose I would if it involved direct ancestors that simply aren't correct. It is humorous to see others putting down Holcombe in America rather than Holcombe in Somerset, England, but it does get frightening when you see the amount of people who simply copy every bit of information they find on others trees, so you get ten or 20 people ALL stating this person died in Holcombe, America and not in England.
Actually, whilst on the subject of informing others about their ancestors, I have been reading a lot books regarding Bristol's more dark history and have contacted others to inform them that their ancestors are mentioned in these books, but they never reply. I put links to articles on death records instead, so others in the future can find them and appreciate the knowledge.
Some research was done which found that about 1 in 20 of the fathers stated on birth certificates wasn't actually the real father. This means that the further you go back in time there will be an ever increasing number of people on your tree who are not biologically related to you, even if you have got the correct "theoretical" line. The only lines you can really be certain of are your paternal and maternal lines which can be verified by DNA.
Have you a link to this research? It does sound interesting. Luckily on my paternal side, the resemblance of us Clark's in photos goes right through, so paternity is definitely assured that way :D
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And just to confuse it more, the German government has agreed a draft bill allowing mothers to give a flase name when her child is being born. The idea of this is that they think that this will lessen the amount of abandoned unwanted children.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21774845
Regards
Malky
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I would be really grateful if someone told me about mistakes in my tree. As I've been going through looking at things I've uncovered several places where I've made errors, so it's probable that there are more.
I haven't noticed anyone else with errors in relation to my own tree. I do see people who don't have as much information as me, but for the most part I don't bother to contact them. I don't feel confident in my research so I don't feel that I can't tell them about mine.
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ye i ve made errors but no-one has told me about them - ive hopped onto other peoples trees and realised the mistakes - and then corrected them -
its not easy as there are always about 5 johns same last name that might be your ancestor - so you put in the one which seems to fit best - if its not right you find out later - you can amend .
ive noticed mistakes on other peoples trees but i think that having local knowledge is great and we shouldnt judge our American and australian cousins who have no idea that x church is so many miles away from y village ect ect .
what i have found is that everyone seems very polite and they go out of their way to help - which is really nice - ive made some good contacts too and found new cousins i didnt know i had
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andreajjj: ''ive noticed mistakes on other peoples trees but i think that having local knowledge is great and we shouldnt judge our American and australian cousins who have no idea that x church is so many miles away from y village ect ect .''
it would help if some folk used a map once in a while as well.. :)
but sometimes not even the locals know where they live or wots around them.....
8)
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Hi,
I have seen errors in some people's tree and know that I have the papers etc to prove the mistake and sometimes I get a nice letter thanking me, but then when I look it up they haven't changed a thing so I have given up. I know mine is right and if they think there is correct, so be it!
Kind regards
Bev
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It's happened to myself just recently.
This woman has placed the completely wrong person in her tree. It doesn't bother me so much, but after I wrote to her nicely to point it out, she didn't reply but started copying photos of my close relatives that aren't her relatives at all.
Odd people in the world. ???
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Yes, I tell people if I find a mistake in their tree and am grateful if others return the favour; although I do not allow access to my tree itself unless I am sure of a link and feel that the researcher is 'genuine'. Nevertheless I am aware that large chunks of my tree, early mistakes and all are out there in the public domain because someone copied it and made it public. That I am afraid is life. Most people are grateful and respond well but I had the most bizarre experience recently.
I have transcribed a large number of the records for Easthampstead in respect of names in my tree. (Giles and Bowyer). Another tree had one of the Giles men married to a lady, in a different parish, when there was a marriage in Easthampstead that made more sense. I pointed this out (nicely I thought) giving details of the marriage and asking if there were any facts that I had missed and was rewarded with a request to send him the GEDCOM of my tree so that they could 'add it to their tree and check it out'. I replied to say I was not willing to do that but would happily let them have my transcript - cue a demand for my GEDCOM and no interest in the transcript. Needless to say they have neither and their tree still shows a marriage and therefore ancestors that I strongly suspect are wrong. A pity because I am sure we could have helped one another but I am not going to just hand over 15 years of work to someone who has not even said thank you for my interest.
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i recently pointed out a mistake that at least five people had copied the name of a lady who had acutally been widowed - and people didnt know until i dug it out.
i also dug deep on somthing else and when everyone thought another couple had got married quite old and perhaps living togther having children (now this is what the archives told me they would have been living together but i didnt agree and decided to dig deeper) found another earlier marriage for the fella his wife died and the first lot of children were to the first wife - what a find !!
what i would say is - dont follow suit with everyone else and do your own research -
as for copying pictures of your relatives - not very nice unless they ask first - i think that there should be a link to provide the person who wants the picture to ask the tree owener if they can have a copy and expalin where they are related so that the tree owner can decide if its ok or no
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I have contacted a few people about errors on their trees, with varying responses. Some have sent thanks, and made the corrections, while others ignore the corrections, although at least one sent thanks! I have now begun to add comments to some of these trees, so at least anyone looking at them in the future might spot the error!
I would be glad to hear from anyone spotting errors on my tree, although it has only happened once, and I made the correction straightaway. I do try to note where information is unconfirmed, or leave it off completely, while keeping a note of it in my paper files.
The most recent comment I added was because I could not find a way to contact the owner - might that be because their subscription has lapsed? They had included a marriage which at first sight looked right, but had in fact confused an aunt and niece who had the same first name and middle initial. Since the GRO only gave middle initial the confusion was understandable, I had identified it from the county BMDs which are thankfully online. The aunt was the 12th of 15 children, while the niece was the daughter of the 2nd eldest, so the relative ages made the marriage a possibility for either.
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I don't take Ancestry Public Trees at all seriously ...... they are interesting,often laughably large,with royalty and coats of arms and flags and so on but not to take offence with what is 'cooked up' from other trees by dreamers.
Look for the serious subscriber to Public Trees ... they do exist and compare notes with him/her and it is most rewarding.
Just within the last 2 months I came in contact with a Public Tree researcher who had one only name of a common ancestor born 1780.
Our dialogue initially was very cautious but gradually warmed ...... she,like me,found about seven Public Trees that had claimed this 1780 person and, like me,was influenced by the sheer number of claimants and put it on the backburner.
Together we dug and scratched at what evidence was available until finally we found that our 1780 common ancestor married in 1817 and his wife died in childbirth 1817 and that the widower father remarried in 1819 had two more children plus the surviving child of his first marriage who left his home town and married in London proven by 1851 and 1861 censuses.
joboy
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Hi again,
It is a pleasure when you get a person who is quite willing to listen - and change if they think it has been shown to be correct, or the other way around - but when everything is correct in a particular public tree and the other person has been able to go on to find out much, much more about your family, it is quite a temptation not to copy it!!!
Kind regards
Bev
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Just ( tactfully I hope), corrected some errors on a family tree involving my mother and her sisters.
The person I sent correct details to has been very generous, with photographs etc for which I am very grateful and I would not want them to be insulted. I did not say they had names, ages and death dates wrong so just gave a list of dates and ages with corrrect names and causes of death among other info. They can put two and two together and correct their tree themselves . I gave a lot of details they did not know so I do hope they aren`t upset but they have done so much research it seemed a pity they had included so many errors. Anyway we will see. Viktoria.
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I'm responsible for errors on a few trees. When I started I hoovered up 18th century BMD facts -same name different places and put them all , with evidence, on my first attempt at a tree.
2 Years of research have taught me that if individual J is married and baptises his children in village A he is most likely the J who was born in A 25 years previously; not the J born in W-who also married in W. I'm now going through and correcting my tree.
Sadly all my errors have been duely copied and appended to several other trees. Do I contact them all and tell them -or hope the "hints" system will lead them to the correct information?
I suspect quite a few trees are first drafts, it's easier to put possibilities on a tree and amend it later than it is to make notes on paper.
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`fess up, you `ll feel better and the main thing is your genuine relatives won`t be "lost". The main reasons for doing family history seem to be our own ,natural curiosity about our ancestors but then we want them to be remembered, so it is essential you get it sorted. We all admire someone big enough to admit mistakes and those you made are very common, we`ve all pretty well done that in our eagerness . Cheerio and let us know. Viktoria.
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I favour making contact - but NOT telling them that they're wrong (cos it might be that they're not ... and I am!)
My usual message tends to run something like "Hi - I see from your tree on [site] that we're both interested in Nebuchadnezzar Ashbie [or whoever], who was my great x11 grandfather. Most of our research appears to tally, but there are a few places where we have arrived at different conclusions, in particular:
[list of discrepancies]
Would you be interested in exchanging notes on the evidence we have each relied upon, to see if we can get to the bottom of these differences?
Kind regards ..."
I've been ignored more often than not ... but I've never been accused of being rude or unhelpful (yet ...)
I have, however, encountered the "stolen ancestor" phenomenon referred to by the OP. A certain, extensive family tree has appropriated my great uncle Ken, married him off to one of their womefolk, and given him children and (I think) grandchildren.
Same name ... wrong man. My great uncle Ken was a homosexual who moved to America to gain greater acceptance. He never married, never fathered any children, and died in 2002. My great aunt Shirley (who is still alive) scattered his ahes in the potomac. He does NOT belong in this other family tree ... and nor do any of his forebears, all of whom are also my forebears.
I have written and told him this, but to no effect.
And, you know, I feel strangely violated by this. Not, so much, by the fact that they have miappropriated by forebears (whom I share with LOADS of other people ... my grandfather and great uncle Ken had 8 other siblings besides Shirley; their father had seven siblings; his father had 9 siblings; his father had 7 siblings ... yep: there's plenty of other people who share my forebears!) but by the fact that they are wrongly accusing my great uncle Ken of having been a married heterosexual with children. It took a lot of courage in the 1940s and 1950s to be open about one's homosexuality; and somehow their claims that Great Uncle Ken was married with children seem to detract from the courage he showed. That doesn't seem fair to him at all![/list]
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I have a tree that's grown and grown on the A site, and yes I do check out hints to see what they're like but I don't tend to add them unless I'm reasonably confident of the details. I was contacted about one aunt I'd married off to the wrong person and duly deleted that person (though it took me a while to do so as I took a break from the whole tree thing), thanking the person for the information. If I'm wrong about something then I like to hear about it; bottom line I prefer accuracy over numbers. If I see something on another tree that might be relevant to mine but I'm not sure of I'll politely email the other person and try and get a dialogue going with regard to where/how they got their information. Trouble seems to be that a lot of the people I look at last logged in 6 months or more ago.
What I never do is load personal photos to the tree, nor put others on mine. The only photos I have uploaded are .jpgs of documents, and to be honest I don't mind if people copy those over if it helps them get their facts right.
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I've often wondered if I should tell people or not. I would want to know if I had made a mistake.
I have contacted a few people in the past when I noticed we had the same people on the tree but different information. I sent them a message and asked them where they got the info so I could double check it against my records to make sure I didn't make a mistake.
Most of the time they never reply.
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I offer corrections on trees that include my family where I know the information is incorrect...sometimes I get a response but not always as some haven't logged on for some time....I hate to see my family added to the wrong line >:(
As for photos...I wouldn't mind mine being added to the correct tree but it is only fair that permission should be granted first...Family history is for sharing...unfortunately there are a few who think it is okay to take... without sharing what they have ::)
If you don't want your photos to be taken by others... then don't put them out there.
Carol
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I offer corrections on trees that include my family where I know the information is incorrect...sometimes I get a response but not always as some haven't logged on for some time....I hate to see my family added to the wrong line >:(
As for photos...I wouldn't mind mine being added to the correct tree but it is only fair that permission should be granted first...Family history is for sharing...unfortunately there are a few who think it is okay to take... without sharing what they have ::)
If you don't want your photos to be taken by others... then don't put them out there.
Carol
I got a few old photos from my grandmother, I scanned them and added them to my tree.
Someone saved a copy to their tree, when I went to look at the tree their tree was private.
I sent a message and asked them what part of the family they were from, and would they like to exchange information. They never replied.
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I sent a message to someone a week or so ago saying 'you seem to have attached X to your family tree by mistake, his parents were actually...' but probably will never hear from them.
The same day I found what I was sure was a distant relative (same distinctive first and last names, birthdate and place, parents, etc.) and was surprised to see that she had married (family notes say she never married)... and then even more surprised that there was not 1 but 7 husbands, some with children attached (some of the same children attached to more than 1 father even). The supposed husbands and children overlapped and if the tree was accurate then not only was she a bigamist several times over but she managed to produce 3 children in 1 year by different father in 3 different countries. There's obviously no point in telling this person there's a little mistake in their family tree... :-\
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I sent a message to someone a week or so ago saying 'you seem to have attached X to your family tree by mistake, his parents were actually...' but probably will never hear from them.
The same day I found what I was sure was a distant relative (same distinctive first and last names, birthdate and place, parents, etc.) and was surprised to see that she had married (family notes say she never married)... and then even more surprised that there was not 1 but 7 husbands, some with children attached (some of the same children attached to more than 1 father even). The supposed husbands and children overlapped and if the tree was accurate then not only was she a bigamist several times over but she managed to produce 3 children in 1 year by different father in 3 different countries. There's obviously no point in telling this person there's a little mistake in their family tree... :-\
Sometimes it makes you wonder if people ever check their own research.
I found a tree with my family members on it but they had my great grandfather listed as the father for my gggrandfather. They had the birth dates correct for each of them, so I can't work out how they didn't notice that the "son" was born before the "dad" lol
Also they had his sister, listed as his spouse.
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A few months ago someone added my father in law to their tree on A. It was very obviously wrong and I messaged them to tell them so. They removed him but didn't communicate with me, which was fine by me.
I have disabled hints from other researchers on A. Whilst they are interesting, I found the number of inaccurate ones alarming and they become a distraction.
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I can understand this being upsetting because it's so personal and therefore hard to ignore - but ignore it you must. Tell them the once out of courtesy, and leave it at that. :-\
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It's a common problem...I have notified people who have attached my rellies to the wrong ancestors and mostly they have thanked me and corrected the mistake.
Carol
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I tell them, and they often don't like it.
Unless their erroneous claim directly affects me ( like falsely claiming one of my relatives ), there is not much point in arguing with them.
kennett
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It happens all the time I also had people taking copies from my tree and photos and adding them to theirs as far as Australia and my ancestors had never been out of Scotland ..I have contacted a few and they have removed them and some just ignore you best to keep tree private now
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To be honest if I had a wrong entry on my family tree I would be pleased for people to let me know provided they can back it up. I do not use ancestry by the way.
helina
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welll wellll wellllllllllllllllll >
given a new pdf of marriages from opc wilts came out on Saturday for Yatesbury..... there will be a lot of folk around the world and on rc that will need to check their work again as the transcription errors have reached absolutely new heights....... more on this later once i do a comparison pdf.....
merry xmas
:-\
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It would be appreciated if you let the OPC site know of the errors if they are that bad - we try to provide free information as accurately as possible - it is not always possible with the nature of this project to check every item and a disclaimer on the home page does suggest to users that they check original sources. We are human, we are not perfect and slating our efforts in public and hiding behind an alias is not helping us get things right
We are most grateful for constructive criticism from anyone if directed to us
If you have a complaint about a product from Sainsburys do you contact Tescos
Administrator
Wiltshire OPC Project
Please feel free to contact me via the website if you would like to share with us any errors you may find
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I feel that the main part of researching family history is the satisfaction of knowing that you got there yourself with a lot of hard work and fun along the way. I do not post my tree or use information from other trees posted on public sites, because from the ones that I have seen, there are many that have been posted that contain errors. I am always happy to share the information that I have with genuine people who contact me. At least I know that I am giving them accurate information.
When I have hit a brick wall in the past, there are many on here that have offered valuable advice and help to overcome it. I don't understand some peoples need to post any suitable person in their tree just to say they can go back twelve generations. Isn't it better to go back four generations, knowing that it is accurate and with the satisfaction of knowing that you got there with your own hard work.
If I found an error in my work, then I would want to be told about it. Likewise in the past, I have tried to tell some people of their errors in public trees, only to be met with indifference.
On one public tree, my great grandfather ended up getting married and passing away in America. He had American descendants. I did try to point out to the tree owner, that in fact my great grandfather never visited America, never married in America and certainly never died in America. With Christmas coming, I must pop down the village cemetery and put some flowers on his grave.. They still wouldn't listen :) :) :)
Steve
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Please do let me know via the OPC Project when you do this - not sure why you have had a pdf of our copyright given to you
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I usually get short shrift when I point out the error of someone's ways on a tree. Why they are so determined to keep the wrong information I don't know but there it is. One can only do so much. I would be :-[ at having stuff wrong but grateful for someone who takes the time to put me on the right track.
:)
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I agree with you Millipede. I have pointed out quite a few, and like you get no reply. The same error is never removed. I think that they a collecting names. I had one who had over 13,000 names in her tree!
At least two people have a photo of my granny and grandad on their tree, and I asked how we are connected - very politely and I am still awaiting a reply
Anna
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Well, think I've just 'lost' a recently found 4th cousin since I pointed out that she's provided her great-grandfather with not one but two sets of parents- the correct ones and then another couple who lived in another county and were a different religion from what I can see (and she's also attached their children to her tree). Annoyingly the details of the correct parents came from her American cousin who got the details from me originally :-\
On the other hand, I've just told my father's cousin that I noticed some errors in his online tree and he's begged me for corrections so that he can fix the problems :D
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I have just remembered, that I had one grateful recipient, and she decided to repay me by sending a recipe - from the States. :). Anna
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re Trancegirl :"Please do let me know via the OPC Project when you do this - not sure why you have had a pdf of our copyright given to you "
I dont believe anyone has copyright over the mormons microfilms except the mormons themselves.
I downloaded the Yatesbury PDF of the opc from the net, after having found it google.... as I have a vested interest in all things Yatesbury considering most of the folk who ever lived there are related to me in one way or another for at least back to 1720,and my genealogical studies have to be accurate as I am a published person with ISBN rated materials in the public domain of Australia.
So I will do comparisons and assessments of material relating to my ancestral records no matter what anyone thinks, and if they have it wrong I will tell them or show them politely how.
And yes I have sent you a copy of my PDF comparison to you so you can repair the faulty entries which I hope will be helpful to you as I spent 4 days going over the entries and double checking, for which I now have to amend numerous of my trees in the public domain
:)
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We value corrections to any of our documents since at the end of the day we are volunteers and are few. Transcriptions are the copyright of the person who transcribes the item. If we were publishing LDS images then that would be their copyright. We do not use the LDS microfiche to transcribe from wherever we can we transcribe from the original registers or photographs of these if we can. Each OPC or transcriber uses their own source material to transcribe from. We don't mind people downloading transcriptions for their own use but they should not be shared via any other medium. I shall certainly get someone to view the original registers again
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good o
:)
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Recently, I saw a connection flagged. A particular lady had latter information correct, but parents and therefore grandparents etc wrong,
The particular parents were my great uncle and his wife. The lady had got their children and descendants right, but the parents birth, marriage and death wrong. . I searched for where she had got the mistaken info from and found it,
So I double checked my info [just in case] then dug out my great uncle's birth. marriage and death certs.As well as census returns for all involved.
The lady contact was adamant that she was right. Her 'ancestors' must have married at 14 and produced 5 children before they were 22, IF she was right. Ah well I tried.☺
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I now just leave "comments" on family trees, detailing the correct facts and where I've found them!
I do work for FreeBMD and I both receive and submit corrections - he who never makes a mistake, never does anything :)
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One of me cousins, 3x removed, was a famous engineer. You look on ancestry and find hes actually a dead child of someone, and a grandchild of someone who died as a baby. Do a search on ancestry and this line is highlighted as correct on a search of the engineers name.
Now, the person who did this connected names and found a birth certificate with the correct name (forget the death certificate here, they can just ignore certain facts :( ), and a link to another family of engineers with the same surname.
Really, really frustrating. Point that out to them with documents and its ignored.
To prove a point I invented a person, stuck it on my tree, and found out what a remarkable life he led in the early 1800s when others found the name and connected the non-existant dots.
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I now just leave "comments" on family trees, detailing the correct facts and where I've found them!
I do work for FreeBMD and I both receive and submit corrections - he who never makes a mistake, never does anything :)
I think you have hit the nail right on the head with your quote "he who never makes a mistake, never does anything."
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To prove a point I invented a person, stuck it on my tree, and found out what a remarkable life he led in the early 1800s when others found the name and connected the non-existant dots.
Ha ha ha ... made my day, that one!
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My Trees were copied from GR and put straight to Ancestry, mistakes and all, I stopped using GR and now never put my family on any site, it is really funny to see my errors on other trees, they have not even bothered to check them.
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At one time I transferred my tree to ancestry, but only for a short while and likewise my tree had been copied. But what does annoy me is on 2 trees they have put my direct line back to the 1600s while I cannot find any information pre 1759, and my family came over from Ireland. My father went over there looking at family graves in 1837. I did contact the tree owners, one admitted she had copied it from somewhere and the other could not remember where he obtained the details. I know there is another line also living in Bristol and we have not found any connection which does go back and one of them have copied from him. I have been in touch with that tree owner and his tree has been thoroughly researched.
helina
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I was contacted by someone who had researched some of my ancestors, who assured me that he'd extended the tree and could take it back to the Norman conquest with a character born in France in 1066. Sadly the aforesaid Norman's provenance consisted of 6 family trees-including one where he was born in Normandy, Bedford, Wisconsin. (Impressive!) and even more impressive-his son-on all trees, was born in 1060! Mainly in "Normandy UK". ;D
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Another senior moment
"My father went over there looking at family graves in 1837"
Meant 1937
siamese
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To answer the original question ... "No".
For five years my paternal family tree showed my connections all the way back to the 1590s in Dorset. There were hundreds of them and last year I found out that none of them were related. I had started with the wrong paternal grandfather; a fact that was only revealed when the 1911 census finally appeared. Goodness knows how many people have copied these erroneous connections.
When I view other trees (usually via Ancestry's "hints" function) I can see many connections that are very different to mine. I place no reliability on the researches of others and almost never import their "facts" into my tree. However, I do find it them a useful way to suggest terms to include in my own search that then reveal records my own efforts have not revealed. So, a big "Thank you" to those of you that do share your trees.
I am puzzled by those of you place your findings out there in cyberspace only to complain when others copy them. The world is large enough to contain lots of individuals that would meet any criteria you might choose to deploy to define "strange". Why then be grumpy if some of these "strangers" use and abuse your data? You put it out there for all the world to see. Why then be surprised when one of those people that are "relation hoovers" alights on your data and copies it indiscriminately, often making two and two add up to 100 (unless you live in a binary world when it does!).
As for rude or grumpy responses, why not be thankful that you don't live in their world? Almost everyone you know isn't like that so don't dwell on the inevitable odd one or two.
I wish all of you a very merry Christmas and much success in the coming year in finding that elusive cousin/aunt/grand relation.
:)
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One tree has a relative born in Birmingham in Lancashire! Another seems to have popped to America every time she had a child, and another lived to be about 240. Even though one lady has used Ancestry Parish record certificates she still uses the wrong surname for another.
I don't store mine on Ancestry it's all on paper, but I do help others.
rayard
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When I started I was given a lot of help from people who had researched the hard way, no online help, cousins who passed on information, and I hope I gave back. Should not moan
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When I started I was given a lot of help from people who had researched the hard way, no online help, cousins who passed on information, and I hope I gave back. Should not moan
I quite agree - but today, there are a vast number of people who just "take" names from others, without thought, attention or PERMISSION, and are, quite literally, "number crunchers". And that is the start of the avalanche, especially when they ignore or refuse to communicate. Hence my comment that I add "comments" to their entries, which will, I hope, help those who really want to get their ancestors in order.
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If i notify someone that their are some errors in their tree and if they choose not to alter it thats their problem not mine. I dont lose any sleep over it ;)
Trees should only be used as a guide and the info in them should be checked. If its checked then they should realise pretty soon if the info is right or wrong.
In the meantime i just go happily on my merry way ..... ;D ;D
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Hence my comment that I add "comments" to their entries, which will, I hope, help those who really want to get their ancestors in order.
Hi, that's a very good point, while researching my Denby line in Snaith, Yorkshire, I came across a tree on Ancestry (in fact there are several) with the wrong birth/Baptism for a family member and someone had kindly left a note for the owner and even pointed out the correct source for the information they were correcting, so I purchased the record which had been mentioned and now have the proof to put to the event, and can you believe it ................................ the owner of the tree has still not corrected the entry on there own tree :o.
Regards,
Frank.
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Yes I agree the familytrees as any other online trees can only be a guide and in that sense can be usefull once proven.
But another point that annoys me, one sees a birth date and so often one finds its the christening date.
helina
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It annoys me when I see my grandparents on wrong tree.There have been many instances when I have been able to prove that Zim right with certificates and record office records,I just tell them I have the proof and if they are interested to get in touch.Nine times out of ten they don't which to me means that are name gatherers and if it fits it must be right
Ringrose
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I recently tried again to correct 2 trees who had a name incorrect but as usual it is just ignored. I even told them that I like my tree to be correct and I am sure they would likes theirs to be the same, but that didn't get through either.
So I will just grit my teeth every time I see their trees with the wrong information on it regarding my close relative (my grandfather).
Kind regards
Bev
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Do not give up hope yet.
Surprise surprise, this morning while browsing though ancestry trees found a tree that had my Mother's family on with some wrong entries awhile back. Again I had contacted the owner and cannot remember if I had any reply but certainly nothing happened regarding the tree.
But suddenly he has slimmed his tree down and only correct entries in.
helina
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Of course you should tell the person and give the reason why they are wrong,you will probably not get a reply,I have tried this before,it is a thankless task,I supposed this started some years ago when people used the Latter day Saints site,of course as a fringe religion who are matching names at Salt Lake City the whole process is flawed,this has carried over until today with the many sites available to people and because people want to take short cuts to their history they will accept anything that maybe fits,I find the worst people are people following a female line who marry into your male line,and get things wrong,so when you contact them and they see you are a male from that line,you get very short emails like I know or none at all,they seem to resent that you are a member of that line and not had to marry into it,it is all a bit weird but that is what you get when you have a hobby of finding dead people. ;D
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There was a time when I would have been eager to help anyone but that time has passed. Now, when I see glaring errors about my ancestors, I just shake my head and leave it at that. I don't know how or why they've paired g-granny with so-and-so and I don't have the time to correct their mistakes especially when, in all likelihood, they won't even bother to thank me for my time and effort.
On the other hand, if I'm corresponding with someone who willingly shares information with me that I don't already have, I will gladly send them info they don't have on people in their direct line. I will probably never hear from them again but at least there's been a mutual give and take and I won't wind up feeling like a sucker who's just been used (as has happened in the past).
Part of the reason why I do family history research is because I want to make real connections with relatives but I've come to the realization that most people are only interested in gathering data for their files and do not care about making friends with newly-discovered relatives. (And that's fine. It just means we have different motives and hopes or expectations.)
So, Ms. Stranger wants to plop someone from my family into her tree and marry them off to someone else. I say, let her; what do I care, as long as my own tree is carefully (and expensively) proven? Why should I, once again, provide thousands of hours and dollars worth of research for free to a complete stranger who won't even say thank you before putting it all online and claiming it as her own research?
I keep hoping to find someone who has done more research into my tree than I have but anytime I find anything online, it's info I naively sent to a distant cousin, not realizing it would go online (except for two cousins who had my permission). And, of course, that info is correct.
;)
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I found that my German ancestors had been "adopted", i.e. my great uncle had been resurrected from the dead and transplanted in Ameirca.
Not an uncommon occurrence but one that at first made me annoyed. I contacted the tree owner (To my amazement, he just said he added "my ancestors" in the interest of "research".
I have added the correct ancestry under "comments" on his family tree (much to his annoyance).
However he has about three family trees.....
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I totally agree with you all, but still it does rankle when you know there are glaring errors in their trees - like my 2 x grandfather. I will change the names, but as an example his name was William and he had a son when he arrived here in Australia named william john, but as some people just copy everything from other peoples trees, poor old bill is left out and his wife (first and last names, date of birth, county and country of origin correct) is now married to their son William John!!
Bev
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I suppose we should expect it because we research family history and we know that people have not changed over hundreds of years,they still have the same failings,so people taking short cuts to find their tree should not surprise us,you find people who are researching a large number of names do not have time to fill out a line and make certain that what they have is correct,thankfully very seldom do you have to tell somebody that the male line they are tracing back is not there's ,in my tree I have a femail who worked as a miner!! and had 3 children all boys in three different places without marrying ,so I sometimes get a email asking about that line,it is not easy to explain to people that they have no way back
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I've rather deduced that folk just don't like being told, however gently, that they're wrong.
In my case I've come across second cousins on-line who had been given incorrect info by older relatives about events in the family's past. I politely suggested that there might have been some misunderstanding about the information and sent copies of birth and death certs which prove that there had been errors, (more like elaborations or mis-tellings of family stories really).Nothing scandalous, I should add.
The result was complete silence from both cousins ever since.
Conversely, I have been very grateful to the local lady who corrected one of my errors and who generously gave me much valuable info about my family.
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It is very annoying when you find trees that are so wrong it's almost laughable.
One I found recently had a woman giving birth at the age of 93 ;D ;D
All it took was a small amount of research to work out that three generations of men all with exactly the same name all married women with the Christian name Elizabeth.
So they had attached a child born to the third Elizabeth to the first one, surely they could work out their mistake?
Oh and no I didn't contact them, neither have I contacted the tree owner with my father on their tree, incorrect Christian name for him, but still married to my mother, can't they use FreeBMD?
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I think we have all come across family trees with the most glaring of errors,I find the early American lines are sometimes altered to fit,one line was from James Town,in Virginia around 1618 before Mayflower, people have been trying to connect the line to England for many years in fact in 1948 a doctor who had researched the name for many years said he was certain it would never be joined with England,well people have altered wills have concentrated on a town in England with the same name,have altered Visitations of Devon to fit the tree,these people have spent a fortune in research fees,the whole thing is a mess,I spent about 12 months trying to make sense of it ,and gave up :-\