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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: Steve G on Wednesday 13 February 19 18:24 GMT (UK)

Title: The Confession And Self Flaggelation Thread .....
Post by: Steve G on Wednesday 13 February 19 18:24 GMT (UK)
Today, while happily slotting some new snippets of documentation onto my tree, I ~ for some reason or other ~ popped open a guys MC.

Glanced over it: Wife was as should be. Fathers occupation was his usual. Frederick Charles ..... Something clicked!

I looked at his fathers entry. All fully documented, of course. Cert's filed away in my cabinet and scanned onto my tree. Frederick Thomas ...  ???

The rest of my afternoon was something akin to witnessing a train wreck, in slow motion. As, little by little, I teased out the details of this massive monstrosity! How the Hell had I got it so Wrong?!?  :o

I don't know, yet, just how far down this tissue of complete fantasy goes. I'll be looking at it again, tomorrow. Once I've stopped, alternately, crying and laughing uproariously! I just can't believe I made such a complete and utter pigs ear of it!  ;D

In my own (Pathetic attempt at!) defense, I would point out that I was dealing with a " Brown / Browne " situation. It Does vary, time to time. But, all the same ....!

Come on then; Who else, among ye, is actually so Human as to be fallible? Never mind the " I have been doing this for SO Long, I started My tree on stone tablets! I've never made a single mistake. And you're a silly little boy for having done so! "  ::) There's enough of that, round here.

What's Your biggest gaff? How did ye spot it? How much petrol did the chain saw take?  ;D

I know I'll be firing up the Husker, tomorrow!  :-[
Title: Re: The Confession And Self Flaggelation Thread .....
Post by: macwil on Wednesday 13 February 19 18:52 GMT (UK)
Hi Steve G,
Yep, been there, done that, got the t-shirt!
In the early days I had a g'uncle of my g'dad as his g'dad & married to his brother's wife.
Early last year I was reviewing a tree for the other half of the family and downloaded a missing image when I realised it was for a different family, on checking the other census images I discovered half were for one family and the rest for another. The problem is I have seven families with the same father's name spread over the two sides of that family tree. I still haven't located any links, so I have about 2doz. people floating about and I can't decide whether to just kill them off or keep trying to discover a link.
Regards,
Malcolm.
Title: Re: The Confession And Self Flaggelation Thread .....
Post by: Steve G on Wednesday 13 February 19 23:50 GMT (UK)
Quote from: macwil on Wednesday 13 February 19 18:52 GMT (UK)
In the early days I had a g'uncle of my g'dad as his g'dad & married to his brother's wife.

Yes. This!  :o

Now that I've got my head together, Malcolm; I remember there was another family. Very military. One, I believe I recall correctly, is buried in a cemetery I remember well. Along with his VC. Fair play to the guy.

Had murders, back in the day, keeping them apart. Looks like one slipped through. Be fascinating, actually, to see how far I took myself. Hey ho.

Over a Hundred perfect beings have read this, look. You and I are the only two to have made a cock up  ;)


(https://i.postimg.cc/PJLhqm9K/Earlier-Genealogist.jpg)



Title: Re: The Confession And Self Flaggelation Thread .....
Post by: pinefamily on Thursday 14 February 19 00:07 GMT (UK)
Rest assured Steve G, you're not alone. I've made many similar mistakes along the journey. Even recently, a friend and I thought we had a breakthrough and went metaphorically galloping off after a family only to discover we had the wrong marriage. To make matters worse, the correct marriage involves a Smith.  ::)
As you say, we are the only ones brave enough to admit it.
Title: Re: The Confession And Self Flaggelation Thread .....
Post by: mckha489 on Thursday 14 February 19 00:14 GMT (UK)
And me!
Title: Re: The Confession And Self Flaggelation Thread .....
Post by: Jang on Thursday 14 February 19 00:43 GMT (UK)
Me too!

I always knew my great grandfather was Scottish, until I found him in the 1881 census, born Co Monaghan Ireland. This is back in the day when censuses were on CD and you needed to go overseas to get certificates. Fast forward quite a few years and a Scottish relative sent me his death certificate - different parents' names, which led me to finding him in the 1901 census - born London! And his parents were born in Durham!

The one positive thing was that I was able to pass on all my Irish research to a real descendant  :)
Title: Re: The Confession And Self Flaggelation Thread .....
Post by: majm on Thursday 14 February 19 01:31 GMT (UK)
Everyone is capable of mis-interpreting an historic document and they dont need to belt themselves over that.  They should simply note the error,  amend their tree chart and remember how it came about,  so they can strive to avoid making similar errors next time... 

I remember being quite upset when I realised the NSW death cert I had ordered had the wrong names for the children of the marriage ... then it dawned ... it was not my ancestor's d.c.  the first of my wallpaper certs ... and errrrr a number of decades ago.   


JM
Title: Re: The Confession And Self Flaggelation Thread .....
Post by: Andrew Tarr on Thursday 14 February 19 09:34 GMT (UK)
(smugly) I don't think I have created any tangles yet.  I attribute that to (a) being a suspicious scientist by nature, questioning almost anything, (b) keeping my tree within bounds of under 200 individuals, with notes of their peripheral spouses without adding them to the tree, (c) being fortunate in having mostly unusual surnames, and (d) having wife's tree and mine separate.

Occasionally I avoid insoluble pitfalls.  One of my ancestral lines is Tydeman from Stonham in Suffolk.  For centuries their eldest sons have been Edmund or Brice (My grandfather was an Edmund). You will understand what happens when that evolves in one village - it becomes impossible to tell what is going on. I visited the churchyard there some years ago - Edmunds wherever one looked, but none of them identifiably in my line.  Ho-hum.
Title: Re: The Confession And Self Flaggelation Thread .....
Post by: Claire64 on Thursday 14 February 19 10:49 GMT (UK)
Oh yes, a stranger pointed out to me that my grandad's grandad (Brook Donkersley) was not a Donkersley at all, but a Boothroyd.  This was back in the dim and distant past when PRs were at register offices and non conformist ones somewhere else, and certificates had to be looked up in the GRO indexes at the register offices and I had no money and...
well, didn't I have lots of info about this man?  I knew who he was.  Except I didn't have his birth certificate or baptism.  Over the years I happily traced the Donkersley family back from his birth in 1851.

Then one day a lady contacted me who had been researching her WRONG ancestor, Anna Maria Boothroyd.  So she wanted to pass all her information onto a proper relative.  Me.  Only this was all news to me!  Brook was the illegitimate son of Anna Maria Boothroyd, who later married Law Donkersley. This lady had been researching her by mistake.  She should have been researching Hannah Maria Boothroyd!

Two numpties.

Lesson learnt!
Title: Re: The Confession And Self Flaggelation Thread .....
Post by: josey on Thursday 14 February 19 10:59 GMT (UK)
Hands up from me too  :-[.

I was sure for a few years that 'my' Charles Hayter 5 x g grandfather was the 'well known' painter & writer on perspective, though thought it strange that his son Charles my 4 x great grandfather was a blacksmith [from his daughter's MC]. Then my mother's cousin gave me a photocopy of a carte de visite labelled 'Uncle John Hayter late of Jack Straw's castle'. Of course the painter's brother John would never have run a pub!! Lots of help from rootschat https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=707548.0 & long story short 'my' Hayters were fairly well to do blacksmiths & came from Windlesham Surrey. And the will of 1807 I had discounted turned out to be that of 6 x g grandfather.
Title: Re: The Confession And Self Flaggelation Thread .....
Post by: Flemming on Thursday 14 February 19 11:24 GMT (UK)
Not so much a person gaff as a building gaff. ‘That’s where my 2x and 3x great grandparents lived in the 1840s,’ said with great pride to anyone who would listen. Er, no, that 'nice' house was built in the 1890s. It replaced a slum.

Then there was the accidental deletion of all the family research. And then the accidental deletion of the back-up of all the family research. Razor blades were hidden. About 75% of it came back using recovery software but, as ever, a lot of the important stuff was in the lost 25%.
Title: Re: The Confession And Self Flaggelation Thread .....
Post by: Claire64 on Thursday 14 February 19 11:48 GMT (UK)
[quote author=Flemming link=topic=808289.msg6676572#msg6676572 date=1550143479

Then there was the accidental deletion of all the family research. And then the accidental deletion of the back-up of all the family research. Razor blades were hidden. About 75% of it came back using recovery software but, as ever, a lot of the important stuff was in the lost 25%.
[/quote]

ooh I feel your pain.  My computer was doing backups on a floppy disk when it all went haywire.  I lost the large family file on the computer, which I hadn't saved earlier, and all the backups as the disk was corrupted.  Luckily I had printed it out, but to this day I still haven't inputted it into the computer.  Another lesson learnt.  I now use The Cloud which automatically backs up what I am working on, and I also have a portable hard drive, just in case!!
Title: Re: The Confession And Self Flaggelation Thread .....
Post by: coombs on Thursday 14 February 19 14:19 GMT (UK)
Oh yes, I have had to lop off a couple of branches and have new ones grow out of them. I (and a cousin of mine) assumed that the Francis Fradin born in 1731 in London was the same man who wed in 1759 in London due to the rare surname. I then found out that my Francis Fradin was born in 1724 in Poitou, France and was one of the last Huguenots to arrive in England. Turns out he was a relative of the 1731 one who descended from an earlier branch of the same family who came to London in the 1680s.

Namesake cousins can lead you on a merry dance, as can 2 unrelated people of the same name.
Title: Re: The Confession And Self Flaggelation Thread .....
Post by: Steve G on Thursday 14 February 19 16:44 GMT (UK)
It's good to talk  ;) We shouldn't keep these calamitous cock ups clutched to  our chests. Nice to see we do have some fellow Humans around  :)

As it happens; I've just come back from my tree. Lost my man a wife ~ who had always been dodgy. That cost me a kid, who'd practically died at birth anyway. Boosh! Job done. Stitched a far better supported wife in and Bob's ye uncle ..... Or, is that a bad analogy to use around here?  :-\

Anyone else feeling moved to unload?  ;D
Title: Re: The Confession And Self Flaggelation Thread .....
Post by: Flemming on Thursday 14 February 19 17:12 GMT (UK)
Quote from: Claire64 on Thursday 14 February 19 11:48 GMT (UK)
ooh I feel your pain.

Thank you  :'(
Title: Re: The Confession And Self Flaggelation Thread .....
Post by: pinefamily on Thursday 14 February 19 22:15 GMT (UK)
Yes indeed, the issue of rare or unusual names is a common one I feel. I have had a merry dance with the various Jonathan Dowdeswell's in and around London in the 18th century. I think it's sorted now (famous last words?) but there's always a chance of coming across another record that throws it all out of whack.
And as for computer glitches, yes I too feel the pain. I've lost complete research files a couple of times in years past; the worst was scanned photos that were irreplaceable. Now there is always at least one backup on hard drive. And an online tree.
Title: Re: The Confession And Self Flaggelation Thread .....
Post by: Mart 'n' Al on Thursday 14 February 19 23:40 GMT (UK)
Claire64, you said, "...  I lost the large family file on the computer, which I hadn't saved earlier, and all the backups as the disk was corrupted...."

I spent years of my career asking people how they knew their backups were reliable, in the days before we had networks. I used to get most pleasure out of asking CEOs and accountants!

Martin
Title: Re: The Confession And Self Flaggelation Thread .....
Post by: ozlady on Friday 15 February 19 02:59 GMT (UK)
Not exactly a gaffe, more like ignoring the obvious. Spent AGES looking for great grandad's birthdate. It was on the front page of the family Bible held by my cousin. I'd even ordered a couple of possibles from GRO.......
Title: Re: The Confession And Self Flaggelation Thread .....
Post by: panda40 on Friday 15 February 19 07:50 GMT (UK)
Yes I followed the wrong line, when the GRO allowed you to cross reference mothers maiden name before 1912 I went back through my tree and found I had the wrong great great grandparents. Having spent hours researching this line at the archives I had grown attached to these relatives and knew a lot about them. It was like a divorce taking them out of my tree and putting all my research away.
So I started looking into the right people, this has opened up a can of worms with more problems and lies as well as dead ends. I can’t take to this line of my tree at all and it’s so frustrating. I want my non relatives back ;D
Regards
Panda
Title: Re: The Confession And Self Flaggelation Thread .....
Post by: radstockjeff on Friday 15 February 19 09:04 GMT (UK)
I have had some blind alleys in researching for my friend Roger in Melbourne.
Our introduction was unusual from a chance meeting of my son, who was living there ,and   Roger.

Roger knew little of the background of his gggfather George who had emigrated from England in1855.
On one of our visits to our Oz family we met Roger  and visited Carlton Cemetery. There was the family memorial showing George and Sarah.

First blind alley was the mismatch of George and Sarah but we got out of that one quite easily.

When I got back on the right track I established a marriage between George and Eliza in Wisbech.
George and Eliza had emigrated , with two of her sisters Sarah and Emma.
I had identified two families (Watson),in the right area of North Norfolk, both of whom had Sarah and Emma and both the fathers had been of a similar age and both of whom were in the building trade and both of whom at the time of the emigration had died.

Again I took the wrong turning and it took the help of a RC in Canberra to dig me out of that hole.

But what of Eliza, George's wife. Well, she died after about 4 years in Melbourne and George then married her sister Sarah.