RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => Topic started by: warncoort on Saturday 24 December 16 06:12 GMT (UK)
-
Folks,
I have been tracing the Bellamy family from Yaxley in Huntingdonshire,specifically Robert Green Bellamy b 1816 and his wife Charlotte Crane b 1820 and children George 1840 d 1841,Robert Green 1841,John Crane 1847 and Sarah Ann 1851,all together in Yaxley for 1851 census.Beyond that i found nothing for later census,thought Robert Green Snr may have died but nothing there.Carried out general search for Charlotte and found New South Wales,Australia shipping list for the family in Dec 1852,sadly Sarah Ann had died on the voyage.
This research is a one place study so i have no family stories to follow so thought i would check public trees on Ancestry,found ten,all of whom say Robert Snr died in 1851 with no source except other trees.
I am amazed that you would join a subscription site and just copy other peoples trees even when they are wrong!More money than sense????????????
Eric
-
Unsourced trees are a big problem. They just add to the many irrelevant 'hints' that subscription sites seem to return.
-
It's not just subscription sites - there are trees all over the internet which contain incorrect information.
They probably originate from one incorrect tree, which has then been copied by others and put on the internet for all to see.
The trouble is, that if there are lots of them, people believe them simply because there are so many (despite them all being incorrect). Perhaps there may be one which is correct which is dismissed because none of the others agree.
I think many of us have found examples of this related to our research.
-
I have found trees online that seem to be accurate but don't add people to my tree until I have checked them. Some are pretty accurate or at least give me ideas on where to target research.
I took a 14 day free trial recently and picked a good hint for the father of a illegitimate relative - I need to go the library mentioned to check it is correct. (24 hour flight each way). His wife died and within 12 months a servant has a baby and 2 years later he marries someone else and then emigrates - all to be followed up.
I have also found men with two wives at the same time according to their tree and I don't think that's legal in Hampshire and in small towns they wouldn't get away with it although there might be mistresses.
Jan
-
I just added many German relatives to a couple of branches some going back to 1500's - all from ancestry trees, which I checked as I went, to make sure they tallied. Missed one big inaccuracy though, despite being on more than ten or so trees - son born in 1756 / father in 1726 / mother in 1781??? I've had to leave that family motherless, though the paternal line seems okay. Every time I try to review sources, it comes up that I need to buy a worldwide subscription which I'm not going to do. >:(
-
How many times.... OTHER TREES ARE NOT SOURCES. Other trees can lead you to sources. Nothing wrong with looking at trees to see if they've got some information you haven't - as long as you follow it up properly. Oh well, I'm sure you guys here don't need telling. :)
-
How many times.... OTHER TREES ARE NOT SOURCES. Other trees can lead you to sources. Nothing wrong with looking at trees to see if they've got some information you haven't - as long as you follow it up properly. Oh well, I'm sure you guys here don't need telling. :)
Exactly...... it's the only way to go ........ look at the information,check with your detail and adopt,adapt,and improve.
Joe ;) ;)
-
How many times.... OTHER TREES ARE NOT SOURCES. Other trees can lead you to sources. Nothing wrong with looking at trees to see if they've got some information you haven't - as long as you follow it up properly. Oh well, I'm sure you guys here don't need telling. :)
That is the big problem, they are HINTS, not facts and not sources. If someone gives you a hint, it is meant to lead to looking for something, unfortunately people dont do that, they just copy. Even on here we still get people who maintain a date/ name etc is right as " trees I've seen on line all say that." As Ruskie so rightly pointed out, it only takes one person to record a fact incorrectly and soon it is accepted by half a dozen others as being correct.
This subject comes up regularly on here, but I'm afraid it is something that will never stop as long as certain sites advertise with such phrases as, " Just type in your name and trace your family back to the year dot! " It isn't that easy, as we know. In the end though, it is up to the individual, if they are happy to accept inaccuracies that is up to them. You'll probably find that a lot of those are people who took up offers, did their tree during that time after being inspired by a programme such as WDYTYA, and haven't looked at it since. Genealogy, as we know, is an expensive and time consuming hobby and a lot of people don't want to spend time or money on it, they want it handed to them on a plate.
-
It's not just subscription sites - there are trees all over the internet which contain incorrect information. They probably originate from one incorrect tree, which has then been copied by others and put on the internet for all to see.
In other contexts that would be called a virus .... :( ... or a Chinese whisper ... >:(
-
I took a 14 day free trial recently and picked a good hint for the father of a illegitimate relative - I need to go the library mentioned to check it is correct. (24 hour flight each way).
Can that library not help you out by Email? Or find a local researcher?
-
Something to consider for New Year. Although I may be moving back to UK in 2017 and then I can visit all the places that have information on my family.
Jan
-
I took a 14 day free trial recently and picked a good hint for the father of a illegitimate relative - I need to go the library mentioned to check it is correct. (24 hour flight each way).
Can that library not help you out by Email? Or find a local researcher?
Or put details on here so someone can help.
-
I found a tree earlier this week where the person seemed to be hedging her bets. She had a man married with 7 children, names of children and wife all correct, places they lived on various census all correct, then for some unknown reason she had him in the navy and had attached proof with a form giving his name and lots of other sailors! The only problem was at the time he was supposed to be in the navy he was living with his wife and 7 children and working as a labourer.
I've no idea why she suddenly threw in the naval man, but it certainly wasn't the same man as the rest of her tree.
-
You'll probably find that a lot of those are people who took up offers, did their tree during that time after being inspired by a programme such as WDYTYA, and haven't looked at it since.
Exactly, and many will have found that it was much more complicated than they expected. They may be aware that they have gone wrong somewhere, and found it too daunting to continue.
What never fails to surprise me is why people get so worked up about other people's mistakes. By all means browse trees for hints, but as long as you're happy with your own conclusions, leave them to it.
-
What never fails to surprise me is why people get so worked up about other people's mistakes. By all means browse trees for hints, but as long as you're happy with your own conclusions, leave them to it.
I agree - if they want to believe that my father was buried in America, or that my grandfather married a completely different woman, in spite of my giving them proof that they were wrong, that's up to them. I'm sure that my ancestors don't care!
-
I agree - if they want to believe that my father was buried in America, or that my grandfather married a completely different woman, in spite of my giving them proof that they were wrong, that's up to them. I'm sure that my ancestors don't care!
I am sure that almost all of the "relocated" ancestors were caused by the old drop-down menus on Ancestry. When you entered a place name, it would auto-fill with a US bias, so unless you paid close attention you might find that instead of (for example) Birmingham UK, it had recorded a Birmingham in the USA. People might not have noticed this, or if they did, not known how to correct it. Probably a lot of them had only very basic computer skills.
We really should make allowances for people not being as adept as ourselves in various ways.
-
As always, people will believe what they want to believe - as we all do too, I guess.
-
I recently sent messages to a dozen people regarding an obvious set of mistakes which seem to have been copied from tree to tree - all regarding the same person.
I carefully worded the text so as to put most of the blame on Ancestry's gazetteer - they had Manchester in Jamaica rather than Lancashire, death in a particular street in Dumbarton rather than the same street in Dewsbury, and a child born in Virginia, of all places. If you give people the chance to blame someone else, they are more likely to take action.
I gave details as to where the correct information could be sourced.
I only sent the message to subscribers who had been online during the previous week.
ONE has replied - and they have updated their tree!
-
I found myself on a website tree - married to my brother - that was interesting, I had been googling one of my family names, and it came up with that! It had my married name as my maiden name! Lot of research obviously done on that, NOT.
I didn't even bother to tell the person, no point with that sign of "any port in a storm" stuff - I just laughed and I ignored it totally! Not my problem!
-
Genealogy, as we know, is an expensive and time consuming hobby and a lot of people don't want to spend time or money on it, they want it handed to them on a plate.
Correct Groom,
What they don't realise is, many times the 'plate' has cracks which need fixed ;D
Annie
-
What never fails to surprise me is why people get so worked up about other people's mistakes. By all means browse trees for hints, but as long as you're happy with your own conclusions, leave them to it.
I don't get 'worked up'...it makes me smile/laugh, depending on the inaccuracies but I admit, I would love to know where/how they find such errors in the 1st place, more so when I know it's a tree & the owner is someone I have actually given info. (with proof) to many yrs prior to them putting their tree online :-\
Annie
-
I found myself on a website tree - married to my brother - that was interesting, I had been googling one of my family names, and it came up with that! It had my married name as my maiden name! Lot of research obviously done on that, NOT.
;D ;D
That's a laughable one & makes you wonder where/how they come to that conclusion?
Annie
-
I found myself on a website tree - married to my brother - that was interesting, I had been googling one of my family names, and it came up with that! It had my married name as my maiden name!
I think this deserves some kind of award!
;D
Regards,
Josephine
-
I kind of feel sorry for these people who have all these, mostly ridiculous, mistakes on their trees. They are missing out on the pleasure of doing their own research and taking great satisfaction when you find out something and can verify it to be correct. This is what I love about family history 8)
-
I never tell others if their tree is wrong, it is not my job, I take pride in my own Anc tree and if I started emailing every Anc tree member with ancestors that gave incorrect info it would take me a lifetime.
It does annoy me when you find a Joseph Bloggs who wed in Suffolk in 1690 who was said to be born in Yorkshire in 1665. Without compelling evidence, try closer to home, namely Suffolk. I never trust such info especially as they have no sources.
-
I've noticed, when peeking at some online trees linked to ancestors of mine, that there are quite a few trees with HUGE lists of children for one or two couples. In some cases it's fairly obvious that someone has merged two - or in some cases three families together - Lazy research, the fathers all had the same name, and were more-or-less in the same parish, BUT the mothers' names on the parish records were not the same, and if you checked out carefully even only online the places where the couples lived were named, so in most of those cases it was even with elementary research possible to sort out which couple had which children, but they'd not bothered even to do that. - and the birthdates / baptisms for the children imply some fantastically short gestation periods, even if you try to work a system out where children were baptised at very odd ages!!! Do people not think? Or check? And, as already mentioned, these silly errors get copied, and even compounded....
-But - Wow! They've usually got 100,000 names on their tree, and ancestry tracing directly back to Noah!
They'll never change. And if you send them a correction, even if politely suggesting that your own researches have found something different... well, you're wasting your efforts.
-
It's worth bearing in mind that some people use online trees as a place to keep notes of possibilities. They may not have had time to explore them all in depth. Many have a stop-start approach to family history, and only work on it occasionally.
For these people, it's a work in progress and not the finished article.
-
I saw a post (elsewhere) a few weeks ago from someone who reckoned to have got back to the year 200 with her own tree. Someone challenged her for the source of the info and she replied that she'd got it from the Millennium Tree on Ancestry. Doh! ::)
-
It's worth bearing in mind that some people use online trees as a place to keep notes of possibilities. They may not have had time to explore them all in depth. Many have a stop-start approach to family history, and only work on it occasionally.
For these people, it's a work in progress and not the finished article.
That's a fair comment. People keep online trees for their own research, not for others to come and pick them apart. I don't keep my tree online, but there are plenty of people on it who might be related to me, but I haven't proved it, I keep them there to research later.
-
I have to disagree with putting trees up which are not the finished article and people add their "possibilities" without confirming them (such as they know it is only a possible but they add them anyway without saying "a possible") as that is a dangerous path to tread as people will take that as gospel. I never add someone who I don't know if they are the right person.
-
I have to disagree with putting trees up which are not the finished article ...
?????? ;)
Is a tree ever finished?
I inherited a tree that my grandfather had been working on for at least 50 years in 1955 and have grown and expanded it ever since.
When I kick the bucket I hope one of my children or grandchildren will take up the baton and so on forever.
I can not visualise a complete tree.
Cheers
Guy
-
I have to disagree with putting trees up which are not the finished article and people add their "possibilities" without confirming them (such as they know it is only a possible but they add them anyway without saying "a possible") as that is a dangerous path to tread as people will take that as gospel. I never add someone who I don't know if they are the right person.
I have various trees on Ancestry, some of which I believe to be 100% accurate. Others, however, are just there for testing ideas and relationships. They are labelled as such, and the metadata clearly tells anyone who reads it that they are unconfirmed and will almost certainly contain errors. If someone doesn't bother to read the health warnings, and takes them as gospel - that's their problem, not mine.
-
I have to disagree with putting trees up which are not the finished article and people add their "possibilities" without confirming them (such as they know it is only a possible but they add them anyway without saying "a possible") as that is a dangerous path to tread as people will take that as gospel. I never add someone who I don't know if they are the right person.
I have various trees on Ancestry, some of which I believe to be 100% accurate. Others, however, are just there for testing ideas and relationships. They are labelled as such, and the metadata clearly tells anyone who reads it that they are unconfirmed and will almost certainly contain errors. If someone doesn't bother to read the health warnings, and takes them as gospel - that's their problem, not mine.
If I do find a possible I add a note under the name of the ancestor on my tree, for instance it has their name, then I add a little note saying "A Thomas Whale wed Eliz Balaam in 1784, a possible". It is so I do not forget that I had found a likely marriage or baptism.
-
I have to disagree with putting trees up which are not the finished article and people add their "possibilities" without confirming them (such as they know it is only a possible but they add them anyway without saying "a possible") as that is a dangerous path to tread as people will take that as gospel. I never add someone who I don't know if they are the right person.
But surely it is up to the people who copy from that tree to check, not the owner's responsibility to make sure it is 100% correct before adding it to their tree? If someone is just going to copy from a tree then they have to realise that it could be wrong. I have a few people on my tree that I was certain were the correct people, however as other records have come on line, I have realised that they are not correct and have removed them. I'm afraid I'm not going to stop putting my tree on line just in case some one copies it when there may be mistakes in it - that is their responsibility, not mine. Of course, the other alternative is to always keep your tree private!
-
I think it's fine to keep a "work in progress" tree on Ancestry. Part of Ancestry's "service" is to provide a place to store your tree while you work on it. As groom says, you shouldn't take responsibility for others who copy from your tree. But if you set up your own website to present your tree to the world, you should take care that all the details are correct and annotate with references. Well that's what I think, anyway.
Is a tree ever finished?
Nope ;D
-
I think it's fine to keep a "work in progress" tree on Ancestry. Part of Ancestry's "service" is to provide a place to store your tree while you work on it. As groom says, you shouldn't take responsibility for others who copy from your tree. But if you set up your own website to present your tree to the world, you should take care that all the details are correct and annotate with references. Well that's what I think, anyway.
So the onus is on the the person putting up the "source" tree rather than the lazy researcher copying it? You can easily have two people adamant that their tree is right (such as seen in the Chilton thread on the Shropshire subforum) so it may not always be that people are intentionally not checking, but maybe not thorough enough. My mother once told me about a genealogy conference she went to in the 90's where the professional genealogist giving a talk described how he had to lop off a whole branch of research when he found that an ancestor had died in childhood and not grown up to have offspring.
-
In my opinion, which I realise may not be that of others, it is up to me what I put in my tree, whether online or on paper. Obviously it is as correct as I can make it, but that is no guarantee that I won't change it at some point in the future if I find a mistake. I don't feel that I have to annotate it to warn others, any notes are for my own use and I don't feel guilty if anyone has copied it and taken my word for it without checking.
It really all goes back to the title of this thread "Lazy Research" doesn't it? If people want to take short cuts, they must be prepared to risk being led the wrong way.
-
My mother once told me about a genealogy conference she went to in the 90's where the professional genealogist giving a talk described how he had to lop off a whole branch of research when he found that an ancestor had died in childhood and not grown up to have offspring.
Not an ancestor then ? ;D
-
Its why my tree is private. Nobody else will spot my mistakes ;)
-
My mother once told me about a genealogy conference she went to in the 90's where the professional genealogist giving a talk described how he had to lop off a whole branch of research when he found that an ancestor had died in childhood and not grown up to have offspring.
Not an ancestor then ? ;D
Nope :D, but we all see trees out there where births are given but not deaths.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who sees errors in trees because someone has stopped at the first person they find who could fit and assumed it correct rather than eliminate all other possibilities.
-
I've noticed, when peeking at some online trees linked to ancestors of mine, that there are quite a few trees with HUGE lists of children for one or two couples. In some cases it's fairly obvious that someone has merged two - or in some cases three families together - Lazy research, the fathers all had the same name, and were more-or-less in the same parish, BUT the mothers' names on the parish records were not the same, and if you checked out carefully even only online the places where the couples lived were named, so in most of those cases it was even with elementary research possible to sort out which couple had which children, but they'd not bothered even to do that. - and the birthdates / baptisms for the children imply some fantastically short gestation periods, even if you try to work a system out where children were baptised at very odd ages!!! Do people not think? Or check? And, as already mentioned, these silly errors get copied, and even compounded....
-But - Wow! They've usually got 100,000 names on their tree, and ancestry tracing directly back to Noah!
They'll never change. And if you send them a correction, even if politely suggesting that your own researches have found something different... well, you're wasting your efforts.
I have in OH's tree, back to about 1750's, I get to a point where I cannot be certain of the parents, as there are two men with the same name, married to wives with the same name, in the same village. Which is the correct couple ::) ::) :o :o I have absolutely no idea, and have left that line at that point, with the appropriate note :'( :'( :-X :-X
-
Assuming a likelihood that the husbands are somehow related, might it not be worth trying to find their common ancestor and continue backwards from there?
-
Unfortunately, at this point in time, trying to get further back is like the cats cradle, all sorts of twists and turns. Just which is correct........... :'( :'( :'(
-
I have in OH's tree, back to about 1750's, I get to a point where I cannot be certain of the parents, as there are two men with the same name, married to wives with the same name, in the same village. Which is the correct couple I have absolutely no idea, and have left that line at that point, with the appropriate note
And I suppose both men have the same occupation? That is how I separated the broods of two Thomas/Ann marriages around 1800. If they were Labourers of course ...
-
That's more or less how I actually untangled the three family groups I mentioned earlier. That was the group that one LR had tangled, through looking only at easily available on-line, and that other LRs had blithely followed.
All three "batches" of children had the same father's name.
Births spread over 40 (!) years, if I recall correctly.
But each wife had a different name.
One batch often had a location mentioned in connection with recorded events.
And here and there were mentions of the fathers' jobs.
Found the marriages of each man.
That lot all helped to organise information before going any deeper, and then...
Found burial of one wife, and burial of child on next day, linked to father's name & occupation (But that hadn't stopped someone "giving" child a whole life and family, and bundling it in with all the rest).
Created a table to jhelp me sort out birth/baptisms, etc..
Eliminated from being held in same family all 3 surviving siblings with same name and ages within 8 months....
Then started looking more deeply. Sorted "my" lot out from the other two quite quickly. From interest carried on trying to sort others into sep. families.
Found another wife death, plus a remarriage and two more children.... for one man
Then got REALLY serious, started really looking, and sorted them out, apart from one un-named child and a "John" I couldn't pin....
Provided chapter and verse on my findings to the LR with the biggest tree .... but it did mean his own ancestry would not be what he thought it was..... wonder why I thought it was a "He" - can't remember now. ..... but of course, never a reply, and tree remained unchanged. Quite glad he's not really that close a relative as he seemed to think!!!!
I'm delighted if someone suggests a correction / alternative to me.... then we can check it out, and hopefully learn a little more, a little more certainly. It's always good to go on learning.
-
Andrew, I will have to revisit the family to check that out fully. I have a feeling that the one I am certain of before the problem is a farmer, but the other one I cannot recall.
Steve, That is a possibility. It will be very interesting following them...........I think :o :o
-
When I first joined Ancestry all of the user trees had my family going in a certain direction that when I looked at closely, didn't seem right. I later found what I believe to be the correct lineage, and since then all of the other trees have been copying my research instead!
Now I'm not cocky enough to say that I'm 100% right, but I know it's my tree they're copying since the relevant record that I found is not available on Ancestry, or any other family tree websites I've looked at.
-
Just found a good lazy research in a relative I was following.
I have the information for Marion Stewart to 1901 census as single, living with the rest of her family.
A tree on A****y has a marriage for her in 1893, BUT the name is Marian. I checked the census information given, and in every case it shows as Marian, not Marion. Just a slight difference, but a very definite difference ;D >:(
-
A tree on A****y has a marriage for her in 1893, BUT the name is Marian. I checked the census information given, and in every case it shows as Marian, not Marion. Just a slight difference, but a very definite difference
A definite difference, but not necessarily a different person. One can never be certain that 'standard' spellings or personal preferences have been entered. Other corroboration required?
-
Something to consider for New Year. Although I may be moving back to UK in 2017 and then I can visit all the places that have information on my family.
Jan
I am in Hampshire, let me know if I can help at all.
-
I find that some of these A******* trees are totally illogical. I am sure some people just copy bits without looking at the whole picture. I have seen some people getting married a hundred years before they were born, having children after they died etc. One of my sticking blocks for a relative was where he was born. A******* trees give a place but with no evidence. Just because he lived there as a young child doesn't mean he was born there. I have contacted the owners of these trees asking for help but none reply, therefore assume they just copied or made assumptions. I must admit I used to take other people's trees as gospel when I started out, so maybe we all get wiser with experience.
-
I find that some of these A******* trees are totally illogical. I am sure some people just copy bits without looking at the whole picture.
Welcome to the club. A quick search round this website will reveal many threads on this topic. You have to remember that some people use A*** as their 'working document' instead of a package on their PC. If they choose to make it public, we, as 'the public' have to check everything for ourselves. You clearly are.
-
Just found a good lazy research in a relative I was following.
I have the information for Marion Stewart to 1901 census as single, living with the rest of her family.
A tree on A****y has a marriage for her in 1893, BUT the name is Marian. I checked the census information given, and in every case it shows as Marian, not Marion. Just a slight difference, but a very definite difference ;D >:(
I have many Marions, Mary Anns, Maryannes etc. in my tree and their names are all over the place in the records. I'm fairly confident that they are the same person.
-
I have a tree on ancestry and I don't have all my sources on it, they are held separately. I find it useful to be able to glance at my tree on phone or tablet when out and about and want to check a location or suchlike for my research.
This morning I sat and added what I had researched on Arthur who married in 1920. Only a couple of hours later I realised I had added all the info to his brother Andrew who was killed in the war in 1915. Despite having Andrew's death it didn't come up with an "are you sure" warning. All that stuff to delete and retype :'(. I suppose it could have been worse, I could have taken longer to notice and people could have copied blindly in the mean time.
-
... and wouldn't that have served them right, PharmaT??
-How about everyone inserting "Daphne Witterington-Hope III" into their trees somewhere, as a spouse or child, (B. 1910, died 1879) and wait and see how long it is before this back-to-front person crops up on other trees?
-
So that the only trees we know for sure are wrong would be those of Rootschat members?
-
No, so that we'd all be able to spot where people had blindly copied.
-
No, so that we'd all be able to spot where people had blindly copied.
I cannot understand why so many people are bothered, upset, annoyed, irritated or whatever other expression one wishes to use with trees copied from other trees and trees with errors.
What is the point of getting upset, those trees will not interfere with your research will they because you will not copy them?
Or is that the problem researchers these days simply want to find an accurate tree and copy it rather than do any research?
Do new researchers really think false trees and errors only occurred with the age of the internet?
If so they are very much mistaken, heralds (you know those people paid to regulate pedigrees) were not above inserting false links into pedigrees they crafted back in the 16th and 17th centuries.
It has even been suggested that almost three centuries including the reign of Charlemagne never existed and it had been fabricated to allow Otto III and others to live in AD 1000! Now that would throw the cat amongst the pigeons.
In truth if we all do our own research and find complementing sources to validated our findings our trees will be as accurate as they can be.
It won’t make one bit of difference any other tree implies as we will know our trees have been researched thoroughly and are as accurate as we can make them.
When we get past civil registers and census use every version of parish register (some parishes may have up to 4 copies of certain parish registers or sections of parish register), check these against the Bishop’s transcripts. Check burial registers against burial plot registers (lair registers).
Use directories, and various tax roles, wills, ecclesiastical surveys, pew lists, recusant lists etc. etc to confirm your assumptions.
Search out and use manorial records for further sources for individuals in your family line.
When you have done all that pass what you have learnt to your children and grandchildren so that they can add more to the picture and in a few generations you will have an accurate tree to be proud of.
Don’t rush your research family history is an enjoyable hobby which can last many lifetimes and can never be completed in one lifetime. ;)
Cheers
Guy
-
I cannot understand why so many people are bothered, upset, annoyed, irritated or whatever other expression one wishes to use with trees copied from other trees and trees with errors.
What is the point of getting upset, those trees will not interfere with your research will they because you will not copy them?
I quickly learned not to get frustrated at other people's trees - I'd be wasting a lot of time (yet I still join in when there's a thread on this subject :) ). I don't go looking at other people's trees on Ancestry - I suppose I'm missing out on making contact with potential relatives, which is a shame. Never mind, I've already found two distant relatives via rootschat.
-
I gave up getting frustrated at others trees on Ancestry a while ago. It is up to them if they want to use possibles as gospel. I may look at them for an idea into a lead not yet known but I always like to check it for myself, I never take their word for it.
-
I'm just baffled as to why some people spend money on a subscription only to just blindly add people and events that obviously have no relevance to the individual being "researched".
Came across the craziest timeline for one of my ancestors on an online tree yesterday, that had them simultaneously married to three men and having children by all three over the same period in both the US and England, starting from age 10. Appearing in censuses in both countries only a year apart on multiple occasions, then dying in Kent yet buried in New York!
And it's not like they had just copied other's trees, they had a long list of sources. But on looking at them, these "sources" had nothing to do with the actual individual, they were for completely different people! ???
Doesn't upset me that their info is all wrong, just wonder why they bother?
-
I'm just baffled as to why some people spend money on a subscription only to just blindly add people and events that obviously have no relevance to the individual being "researched".
Perhaps they don't spend much money, they just use the free weekends and cheap offers. If they do that, they just add things quickly and don't bother to check.
-
-How about everyone inserting "Daphne Witterington-Hope III" into their trees somewhere, as a spouse or child, (B. 1910, died 1879) and wait and see how long it is before this back-to-front person crops up on other trees?
Which reminds me I got excited sometime ago in my Welsh branch when I thought we were related to David Lloyd George. Anyone famous would be good! Amazing how many others were also related. When adding on the German branch (which could not be sourced as I don't have Worldwide access, just UK Heritage - UK & Aus - though some details are shown in official hints) from others' trees (please don't read any further if you are a RootsChat aficionado) I did notice sometimes places could have an American location tacked on the end such as "Berlichingen, Hohenlohekreis, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, Jacksonville, FL" or suchlike.
I agree with what someone said earlier in this topic, for me it has been a process of learning over years as I dip back in and out of Ancestry, I am much more discerning now having deleted some branches to start over again to make sure they are sourced and the information fits. And I've made my tree private.