RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: casram on Tuesday 22 March 22 12:06 GMT (UK)
-
I thought I had seen it all when a tree on Ancestry had one of my ancestors giving birth at the age of 122. Especially as the tree owner couldn't see a problem when I contacted them.
Today when searching for the parents of James Stebbings born about 1830 in Wisbech Cambridgeshire Ancestry suggested several trees which show his mother giving birth at the age of 285!!. Do people not see that someone born in the 19th century cannot have parents born in the 16th.
Sometimes I despair of human intelligence.
Carolyn
-
I can outdo those! I've seen one where both parents were deceased when the child was born...the father about 45 years before and the mother 30 years before the birth :o :o ;D ;D
-
Yes you sometimes wonder whether people have any understanding of simple biology.
-
I once had to correct someone who had an ancestor born in 1823 dying in WWI in 1915...again, they couldn't see the problem. I give up!!
-
A sadly deceased friend of mine inherited his family tree, started by his cousin. He found in it, what must be the most patriotic, or unlucky, person in the whole world. He was called John Smith and he managed to get killed in every conflict since the Boer War - sometimes twice! There's dedication for you.
Regards
Chas
-
A sadly deceased friend of mine inherited his family tree, started by his cousin. He found in it, what must be the most patriotic, or unlucky, person in the whole world. He was called John Smith and he managed to get killed in every conflict since the Boer War - sometimes twice! There's dedication for you.
He must have been a comrade of another ubiquitous soldier Tommy Atkins. ;)
-
I must say I one clicked on a baptism with all the correct names and places date did not show on page but I soon realized it was 100 years too early and corrected it .
Could have been enough time for someone to copy my error
-
Personally I like the births that happened YEARS before said parents were born ;D
-
A sadly deceased friend of mine inherited his family tree, started by his cousin. He found in it, what must be the most patriotic, or unlucky, person in the whole world. He was called John Smith and he managed to get killed in every conflict since the Boer War - sometimes twice! There's dedication for you.
Regards
Chas
Whew! He must have had a row of medals on his chest to best that of my brother Silvest !
Viktoria.
-
Love that song Viktoria will be singing it all day now lol
-
A group from Oldham “ The Fivepenny Piece “
Also “The Rochdale Cowboy” Mike Harding .
“ He’s my brother Sylvest ,
He’s got a row of forty medals on his chest
He seeks no rest “!etc
Viktoria.
-
Loved 'em both, Viktoria. In fact, I still have a Five Penny Piece CD (transferred years ago from an LP). 'Matchstick Men' has taken me right back to Blackburn in the late 40s/early 50s and thus to an impulse to find my 2xGGparents...with Taylor, Whittaker and Butterworth being the most common names in Lancs in the 19th century, and with all of them inter-marrying and finally producing me, it's been a mission since I started in this extremely addictive pastime in 2008!! I think I'll just put on that CD while I squirrel around the many records later today!
-
It annoys me when People just copy Ancestry Hints as Facts without using their Brains to sift the Hint.
Had one Person who downloaded the Relative on the Voters List aged just 6
Usually it's mostly Americans that people seem to copy everything.
When I tried to help one, she called me arrogant and rude when I pointed out my Relative did not marry her Relative when he was just 7 years old.
Those with Huge numbers in their Tree get me.
Been doing this 20 years now just 4000 in my Tree Certificates for Hundreds of them.
Saw one Tree the other week 14000 records and they had only been on Ancestry 6 months not one Certificate.
These people who think they are saving money by only researching using Ancestry and sending for no Certificates
Don't they realise they are wasting money on their Ancestry Subscription by pretending to Research and inventing a Fictitious Family History not even theirs in many cases. - Rant over - Sorry
-
No need to apologise, I feel some people just want as many names as possible in their trees, I would rather find out as much as possible about closer rellies.
I blew my top a while back ,I think it was when William The Conqueror appeared , ::)
but the” researcher” had no facts about people who at that time- ( some years ago) were still in living memories of descendants .
I want to know about THEM, not just bare dates etc.
A family tree is rubbish if there are inaccuracies ,mistakes can be made in all innocence ,but to latch on to someone on slight proof ie name only is daft .
Rant on, you speak for many when you do .
But don’t pop my bubble of belief that Robin Hood was my ggggggg ggggggggggggggggrandad!
Viktoria.
-
I do find it vexing when people just accept Ancestry hints about the birth, baptism, marriage or burial or a mutual ancestor.
For instance the ancestor dies in Suffolk in 1852 but is then on the 1871 census in Gloucestershire.
-
As we're having a general rant (!) I am frequently annoyed by the fact the Ancestry algorithm *suggests* these impossible births. I was searching for someone born in 1652 yesterday and had many many results in the 1752-1854 range of parish records. Yeah, sure, born in 1652, marriage in 1760, makes sense!
I know that sometimes someone somewhere will have made a mistake about the birth or death of their ancestor and may suddenly stumble on a record which makes sense to them...but 99% of the time they're just dross you have to wade through when looking for an actual record that fits the date.
-
I'm sure I have some of these mistakes on documents which I copied when had eye problems and before I could read original
I wonder if the documents are still attached
Hopefully I changed dates back to logical ones
On life story
I am grateful if anyone points out a mistake but understand reluctance to do so if you e had rude responses in past
-
I think the Ancestry algorithm takes in to account the number of people who believe a hint and add it to their tree, the more that do the more the algorithm thinks it is correct.
-
It's the labourers and washer women who cross the world to give birth several times yet spend the rest of their lives rooted in one place that get me.....
-
Yes Roopat, I have one family of Ag. Labs. who once a year for about 10 years took a holiday to Canada to have another child.
-
Ancestor died in 1856, and is on the 1871 census according to a hint. The enumerator must have been drunk and enumerated gravestones. ;D
Or a marriage of a couple 200 years before they were even born. Goes to show how some people just get excited and just add anything, thinking the hints are the best fit, or are name collectors, a phrase some may not like. ;D
-
It's the labourers and washer women who cross the world to give birth several times yet spend the rest of their lives rooted in one place that get me.....
Yes, I have a poor village curate, whose wife gave birth to 7 or 8 children at regular intervals in the Yorkshire village where he was curate.
Apart from one child, when they apparently nipped up to the Scottish Highlands for the birth.
Then years later, after his death and his children were all put out to work or apprenticed as soon as possible (mostly around the age of 10 yrs) this one child was spared this drudgery to eventually marry a Scottish Baron and live in comparative luxury for the rest of her life, doing nothing for her impoverished siblings!
This incorrect information had been copied to many trees. I did contact one such tree-owner, who did agree with me that in retrospect it seemed very unlikely, but couldn't remember where the information had originally come from.
-
I once had to correct someone who had an ancestor born in 1823 dying in WWI in 1915...again, they couldn't see the problem.
Maybe the person did die during WW1 although not as a 'Serviceman' but may have been in the 'services' at an earlier time which has also been attributed wrongly on his death?
Annie
-
It's the labourers and washer women who cross the world to give birth several times yet spend the rest of their lives rooted in one place that get me.....
Yes, I have a poor village curate, whose wife gave birth to 7 or 8 children at regular intervals in the Yorkshire village where he was curate.
Apart from one child, when they apparently nipped up to the Scottish Highlands for the birth.
This incorrect information had been copied to many trees.
I had that too...one line of my family didn't shift out of Lancashire for about 250 years but on one particular line there was a random child...born 200 miles away.... jammed between two other children born in Lancashire and with biologically impossible dates of birth between the three of them, but the parents names were the same so therefore this child must be this family! :)
It also has the father of the family dying in Somerset when I have provided a copy of his Will to other researcher 20-odd years later that list out every single one of his kids... bar the random one of course...
Thing is the other researcher has the random child as his direct relative so his ancestors (all copied from me and sourced by me) back from there are just wrong! but he isn't having it...! ::)
I've also got plenty of people dying in completely random bits of the world but I do think that's just people not being careful when the prompts for locations come up.
-
I've actually had the opposite problem for a marriage of 2 relatives (both cousins of my great-grandfather and well-known to our family). Bride and groom born in same Nova Scotia village, had 4 children there, died and buried there as well as appear there in all possible census records. So, where did they get married? Wales. Barry, Wales. Strange as it may seem they did just sort of nip over to get married. Groom was first mate to my great-grandfather. Bride's father was a sea captain and she was on a voyage with him. They met up in Barry and decided to get married there.
I'm sure if it was on an online tree it would look unlikely but it really did happen.
-
Thanks for reminder that there are some unusual but true stories out there aga
My latest was a suggestion on thru lines that the DNA connection was thru 2 sisters
Highly improbable that my matches grandma was the sister who'd died age 1
Kiltpin shared the song by ,"I'm my own grandpa " by Willie Nelson n on another post i've listened to it several times to see if the relationships really do compute
Reminds me of another true story .
(when one of my great grandmother s died my great grandfather married her neice )
-
Thanks for reminder that there are some unusual but true stories out there aga
Reminds me of another true story .
(when one of my great grandmother s died my great grandfather married her niece )
I have that too -- when my GG Aunt died, her widower married her niece, who became step-mother to her own cousins!
-
There are SOME legitimate bouncing-around-the-world people.
My eldest niece, long living in Canberra, had her first child there. However the baptism was done by a family friend here in Lancashire.
Next month she is getting married - in the south of France.
-
one relation was a coalpicker she had a daughter in 1902
then disappeared
reppeared in 1907 with 3 more children
then she married their father and baptised those 3 children same year
turned out our husband was a gold miner and theyd been in south africa before he returned to Bolton lancs,
she also had a child with same surname after the father.s death which i would have thought was a mistake on trees but is quite common apparently
i wouldnt have believed it if hadnt seen shipping records and baptism s and then found a descendant who knew that some of their aunts and uncles were born South Africa
-
she also had a child with same surname after the father.s death which i would have thought was a mistake on trees but is quite common apparently
If a married woman had a child, it was assumed to be her husbands -- even if this was impossible due to the husband's absence or death.
All she had to do was turn up at the Register Office and say i am Mrs So-and-so, maiden name Such-and-such and here is my child -- and the child would be registered under her married name with the assumption it was her husband's child.
-
she also had a child with same surname after the father.s death which i would have thought was a mistake on trees but is quite common apparently
Have you looked at the BC to see what it says as you might be surprised?
I have a Scottish BC for a child born to a 'still' married woman (i.e. not divorced/widowed) & her partner.
The child is registered under 3 surnames...her marital surname which was legally her surname, her maiden surname (which signifies the illegitimacy) & the surname of the child's father who attended the registration (or the child wouldn't be recorded with his surname) but...
On the child's BC, the mother admits her child is not her husband's, who is named (as being her husband) although not as the child's father!
That BC is a wealth of info.
I have no idea how illegitimate children born in the same circumstances are recorded elsewhere?
Annie
-
I've had baptism records for 1874 suggested for people born in 1802.
Finally baptised at 72? A likely story.
For the same ancestor, who was born in Rosscommon, Ireland and later migrated to a Co Durham, England, some bright spark has put on their Ancestry Tree that, despite the ancestor in question having lived in England for some 40 years, they went back to Ireland to die ...?
-
If a married woman had a child, it was assumed to be her husbands -- even if this was impossible due to the husband's absence or death.
All she had to do was turn up at the Register Office and say i am Mrs So-and-so, maiden name Such-and-such and here is my child -- and the child would be registered under her married name with the assumption it was her husband's child.
Not strictly true - there is a common law presumption of paternity for a child born to a married couple. That is why a married woman can register a birth alone and have her husband recorded as the father without him being present to confirm it .. BUT if she does that knowing it to be false ( through absence or death) then she commits a serious criminal offence.
However we all know it happened (and probably still does) and the chance of being found out were slim.
she also had a child with same surname after the father.s death which i would have thought was a mistake on trees but is quite common apparently
In England/Wales births weren't registered under any surname until 1969 ... the surname in the index is that of one (or both) of the parents named on the entry, depending on their marital status.
So if a widow has an illegitimate child and she is still known as Mrs "dead husband's surname" then that is the surname the entry will be indexed under because it is her name, nothing to do with her husband ( and the entry may also have a maiden name shown)
-
I have some adult baptisms in my tree. One at just 23 but one at 62.
I always get a bit sceptical when a woman ancestor/potential ancestor has her last child over the age of 45, I know it did happen, perhaps it was more common than you think. It is more common nowadays due to advances in medical science. Some genealogy books say be a bit suspect if the penultimate child was born 7 or 8 years before the last child, could be an illegitimate grandchild.
-
I have some adult baptisms in my tree. One at just 23 but one at 62.
I always get a bit sceptical when a woman ancestor/potential ancestor has her last child over the age of 45, I know it did happen, perhaps it was more common than you think. It is more common nowadays due to advances in medical science. Some genealogy books say be a bit suspect if the penultimate child was born 7 or 8 years before the last child, could be an illegitimate grandchild.
People fathering children at 45 or even rather older is not uncommon at all, but normally that's men in second (or beyond) marriages, (after their first spouse had generally passed) to spouses who are generally at least 5-10 years younger.
There are legitimate examples, even in centuries long past, of women giving birth in middle age. A famous example is Maria Christiana, Princess of Saxony, who had a child, a daughter, aged 51 in 1822.
-
I have some adult baptisms in my tree. One at just 23 but one at 62.
I always get a bit sceptical when a woman ancestor/potential ancestor has her last child over the age of 45, I know it did happen, perhaps it was more common than you think. It is more common nowadays due to advances in medical science. Some genealogy books say be a bit suspect if the penultimate child was born 7 or 8 years before the last child, could be an illegitimate grandchild.
People fathering children at 45 or even rather older is not uncommon at all, but normally that's men in second (or beyond) marriages, (after their first spouse had generally passed) to spouses who are generally at least 5-10 years younger.
There are legitimate examples, even in centuries long past, of women giving birth in middle age. A famous example is Maria Christiana, Princess of Saxony, who had a child, a daughter, aged 51 in 1822.
I have a male ancestor whose first child and last child were born 42 years apart in 1818 and 1860. His first wife died in 1846 and he remarried in 1847 to a much younger woman.
It is easy to assume that a spinster ancestor marrying (before BMD and census eras where you get better knowledge on their age) was about 20 or so when she married but she could have been older, maybe even late 30s or 40 and that may explain why she had just 2 or 3 children.
I have one female ancestor who wed in 1725 in Norwich, and her last child born 1739. I would assume she was about 20 or so when she wed but not necessarily. I have not been able to pin down her baptism or parentage but have a keen eye on a 1691 baptism. That would make her 48 when she had her last child.
-
The one's the raise the eyebrow for me are those where a family seems to have slipped from upper-Middle Class or even Nobility to Working Class or even poverty (or vice-versa) within the matter of a generation.
Make no mistake, it happens but a family's social standing normally takes multiple generations to change meaningfully, especially pre-19th century when economic mobility was far more restricted.
-
I've had baptism records for 1874 suggested for people born in 1802.
Finally baptised at 72? A likely story.
I chanced upon a baptism in 1865 of someone born in 1787. That makes them 78 !
Unusual, but not impossible. The image is at https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=819989.0
-
I would hope someone else would point out my tree mistakes if/when they found them. I'm fallible and although I'm careful to always check Ancestry hints, I do make typo's on occasion.
-
Someone 'borrowed' most (well all to be honest) of my TP tree, including images I'd added borders and titles too. However thy made a bit of of a mess of things, such as the marriage of a woman to her 4xg grandson? (I forget which it was exactly now). Apparently they had seven children although neither was alive for a century or so before or after the children were born. When asked about it the reply was along the lines of the source tree must hav been wrong and warned me to avoid it. It's still there today unchanged and we're not talking about a personal tree on a site here, it's one of those collaborative trees anyone can view and suggest edits for. I gave up after a few days as it needs deleting but apparently that's not an option. It's bookmarked in my favourites as 'bargepole tree'.
-
Having finally given in and done my DNA i was quite excited to discover a possible link, to a sister (Margaret) of my great grandfather (James). They were both born in Cork in the mid 1850s but in Cardiff for the 1861 census, with no mention of Margaret with the rest of the family, though there was an older sister.
Looking at his tree he had his Margaret married to my great grandfather whose wife was a Margaret but Mahony (ie not his sister). He had over 100 children born to her parents, in Ireland, the USA, England and Wales, and goodness knows how many partners for each. Some births in the same year, despite the distance. I had missed her as she was a servant a few streets away from the family and said to be born in Cardiff. Despite his initial insistence that we were related, when i eventually unravelled the family I believe his Margaret was my great grandfather's sister, but he was reluctant to accept my findings, and didn't see anything wrong with his tree. He has however now updated his tree, giving totally different parents to his Margaret (despite initially having the right father), with her father now born 50 years after her birth (and 10 years after her death), and her mother 30 years after her birth. I'm not bothering to contact him again.
-
:o ;D ;D ;D
I've come across a tree like that too. They have a woman married to 4 or 5 people of the same name, having children with each one well into her 70s. In reality the "husbands" are her husband, son, grandson and great grandson. In the same tree, another person has over 130 siblings!!! :o
-
:o ;D ;D ;D
I've come across a tree like that too. They have a woman married to 4 or 5 people of the same name, having children with each one well into her 70s. In reality the "husbands" are her husband, son, grandson and great grandson. In the same tree, another person has over 130 siblings!!! :o
Mad 😀
-
I can beat that ;D
An Ancestry tree has Hannah BROOMHILL born abt 1800 in Stone, Kent, baptised in Lancashire 5th July 1899!
Her death is noted as after 1833, Stone, Kent.
I've had baptism records for 1874 suggested for people born in 1802.
Finally baptised at 72? A likely story.
I chanced upon a baptism in 1865 of someone born in 1787. That makes them 78 !
Unusual, but not impossible. The image is at https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=819989.0
-
I have seen someone born 1702 is listed on the 1851 census according to one Ancestry tree.
And people having children after they died.
-
How about someone listing a woman born in Bedfordshire in 1800 as having 3 different baptisms, 2 in Sussex, 1 in Sheffield (!), in 1798 and 1799 before they were even born!
God, they were quick!
-
How about someone listing a woman born in Bedfordshire in 1800 as having 3 different baptisms, 2 in Sussex, 1 in Sheffield (!), in 1798 and 1799 before they were even born!
God, they were quick!
Common occurrence - baptism before birth - the more the better ;D
-
Baptism before birth, or people having children in infancy.
At least the saying of "All children are conceived within marriage - except the firstborn" holds weight.
-
I think a big part of the problem here is a lot of casual 'genealogists' view family trees as a kind of story, rather than actual history.
-
"Oh look: there's a John Smith. Must be the one I'm missing."
I'm convinced that the first rule of family history in the USA is "anything goes".
When I pointed out to one woman there that Michael John Burke, son of an Anglican clergyman (a member of the Irish landed gentry), was not her labourer ancestor buried in a Catholic graveyard in the USA but the well-documented one after whom Burke's Pass in New Zealand is named, she retorted "Just can't get through to a mule". Indeed.
-
I blame Ancestry for this to be honest. It's a constant battle with the terrible hints, and the whole site is US weighted in the algorithm I'm sure.
I was filling out a profile a few days ago, of a person born in the UK. I kept getting hints for a different person with a surname that was similar but not the same. Despite the fact I'd established their birth (in the UK) and death (in the UK) and residence across a few census records (all in the UK), it kept suggesting this other USA based person. I can see why it's so easy to make a slip up.
-
I blame Ancestry for this to be honest. It's a constant battle with the terrible hints, and the whole site is US weighted in the algorithm I'm sure.
I was filling out a profile a few days ago, of a person born in the UK. I kept getting hints for a different person with a surname that was similar but not the same. Despite the fact I'd established their birth (in the UK) and death (in the UK) and residence across a few census records (all in the UK), it kept suggesting this other USA based person. I can see why it's so easy to make a slip up.
We know that Ancestry is US-centric; so add UK (or United Kingdom) to any address on BMD records.
Simples!
-
Ancestry are particularly bad at dealing with addresses. If you are less than pedantic about entering proper addresses, they "assume", and being a US company, they assume badly. If you omit part of the address, Ancestry resorts to its own gazetteer, which is often wrong (and they refuse to fix it).
Thus you come across people in trees being born and buried in "Birmingham, AL, USA" or "Manchester, Jamaica" when they obviously never left the UK.
Even where the dataset includes proper addresses, adding a record to a tree strips out that address, leaving trees which are bereft of anything useful. For the 1939 register they even strip out the TOWN!
Because the ads tell punters that "it's all done for you", people assume that is the way things are supposed to look.
-
Only today I found that two of my mother’s sisters were baptised before they were born!
Perhaps my grandma took a bath,even though she may not have needed one, like Elizabeth The First! ::)
Viktoria.
-
And paper trail records which show a woman having her last child well into her late 40s or 50s, which are often covering up for an illegitimate grandchild.
-
I have mentioned this before, according to numerous trees, my grandmother's brother who was born in 1874 has a daughter born in 1500. Not only that, all that person's decedents have been added as well.
I have also found one of my ancestors giving birth in Essex in the late 1700s, then nipping across the Pond and giving birth to another child six months later in America. They must have had supersonic ships in those days.
I was once told by an American, when I queried some incorrect information on their tree, as long as the name was correct it didn't matter about the dates. ::)
-
And paper trail records which show a woman having her last child well into her late 40s or 50s, which are often covering up for an illegitimate grandchild.
Yes, that was not unknown.
My mother was 41 when I was born in 1937, my older sister when mum was 38.
No other children ,mum and dad married late due to his ill health and inability to work .
They finally married in 1933, after almost 15 years courtship.
Viktoria.