Blue Blood

[Mike in Cumbria]

"just a well researched observation"

You can't argue with science.

How's that separation anxiety coming along, Erato?

[Mike in Cumbria]

If one claims "horse pucky", you should be able to back it up! This is exactly the issue I have highlighed out there in the community, lots of talk and no follow up.

No - if you come on to a forum and start making silly and insulting  generalisations about a whole continent of people, you have to expect some sort of reaction and ridicule.

As for asking Erato "How often do you research and contribute to the global community?", how about 17 years and over 6,000 contributions to this forum as against your 15 posts?

[LordVader]

If one claims "horse pucky", you should be able to back it up! This is exactly the issue I have highlighed out there in the community, lots of talk and no follow up.

No - if you come on to a forum and start making silly and insulting  generalisations about a whole continent of people, you have to expect some sort of reaction and ridicule.

As for asking Erato "How often do you research and contribute to the global community?", how about 17 years and over 6,000 contributions to this forum as against your 15 posts?

I agree a post like that will cause some reaction, and yes it is a generalisation, but it is not a blind generalisation. This is something that (evidence of this thread) has not only just been observed by myself and is a real problem to the world of family history. It is a issue that was bound to happen as many in the US cannot find their pathway back to Europe and the common reaction is 'if you cannot make it, fake it' which is why you will see countless forums arguing about gateway ancestors not once, but over again because the next oblivious person will come to the table with the same disproven gateway theory simply because they have copied it from another without checking which is why I stated generally people in the US take things at 'face value' as something that I have observed.

Also nobody said it was science, this is something that I have logged over my years of researching my own and others family trees. I mean everybody logs their research... right?

As I understood it was my cultural trait not taking criticism well, after all I have had many American's tell me my culture cannot take criticism and from experience American's really do not hold back on their opinion. Now when I call it like it is (like they do), it is they who cannot take criticism.

Least we forget the original post was a jab at what a person has observed about people from a certain part of the world making interesting claims.

I am from New Zealand, so go ahead let's have some criticism, what do we Kiwis do in the world of family history that annoys the rest of the world.

Hats off 6000 posts is a lot, I guess with a number like that you can rest on your laurels as posting that number and only using this forum apparently makes one a great researcher. I assume you can guarantee to me that all 6000 posts are directly helping people.

[DianaCanada]

Just wanted to add that some early New England settlers went as servants, so were neither wealthy (able to afford the passage) nor fleeing religious persecution nor criminals.
About half of my children’s ancestry is via New England to Canada and the first in their direct paternal line arrived in Salem County, Massachusetts from Yorkshire in 1640 as a servant.  We don’t know if he was indentured or not, but over time he established his own mill. 
Many early New England genealogies were published at the end of the 19th century and they were certainly not all fraudulent.  Many early settlers have hundreds of thousands of descendants, but keep in mind that over the centuries, there were many intermarriages.  Many New Englanders whose families lived in the same area for centuries are often related to their spouses or neighbours and may not even know it.

Also, I guess the type of crime depends how “proud” you might be of an ancestor.  Two of my distant relatives married men, one of whom raped his step daughter and went to jail (and later married her) and another killed his newborn child (blamed on shell shock after WW1).  Crime is crime, not sure it is ever something to be proud of, though petty crime was often committed out of desperation.

[Erato]

"Many early New England genealogies were published at the end of the 19th century and they were certainly not all fraudulent."

Very true.  There were a lot of antiquarians and local history buffs and they had a lot to work with because those early New Englanders kept town records practically from the outset.  One whole section of my tree went to Maine and Massachusetts in the 1600s and they are very well documented [not by me].  Where in Britain they originally came from is not so well established but is of little consequence to me since, unlike the allegedly stereotypical American, I don't give a hoot about blue blood.  If I wanted to find it, I have a convenient gateway ancestor in the person of my own mother who came to the US in 1946.

[LordVader]

I don't give a hoot about blue blood.  If I wanted to find it, I have a convenient gateway ancestor in the person of my own mother who came to the US in 1946.

Interesting one should be so quick to jump to defence about having blue blood after claiming no care. Something I had said must ring true to your predicament otherwise you would not have taken such offence. People are free to claim what they want, but blue blood I would hope one would be able to support such a claim and let the public check the credentials.

It is agreeable there are some well researched and documented genealogies of early US settlers down to present, but for every one true there are hundreds of false connections found at Ancestry.com, My Heritage, Family Search, etc. where people will either through lack of thinking or intent will steal ancestry from others just so they can fake that Gateway ancestry.

But hey if anybody claims it, they should be able to put their money where their mouth is and check with the formal organisations who use professionals to keep detailed tabs on the noble and royal pedigrees.