Family history is thoroughly corrupted

[joboy]

Family history is thoroughly corrupted by the placement of unsourced material.
Sad as it is the quest to acquire a family tree by 'tapping' into other family trees is now rampant.
What we now have are hundreds,possibly thousands,of trees which are incorrect and corrupted because of material that is unsourced and unverified.
only this morning by using a well advertised programme to see if other people had an interest in a particular person who married a particular person at a particular time and place I found five ..... four of which had the bride married at age 11 .. it so happened that the bride(s)  had identical names and an age difference of 7 years *and* were born 300 miles apart ..... the 5th was a match to my own so I am now pursuing my interest only with the 5th to see if we can conjointly expand on our individual trees.
Looking more closely at the four "failed"others (representing 80% mark you) each had a tree that ran into many thousands ... mine after 20 odd years or so of doing it  boasts of only 704 but I know that I can be as reasonably sure as one can be that it is as correct as possible by verification.
I elected not to place my tree on the net even though I subscribe to that programme preferring rather to see what trees are there that contain families that interest me.
How this problem can be sorted I dont know because the stable door is open ......... but if I can offer a little advice to people who have collected very large trees it would be to scale down to those that you can verify and leave those that you cant on the 'backburner' until you can (if you can),
Joe   

[Jean McGurn]

I stopped updating my  online tree a few years ago when I discovered - again on a well known site - that one of my ancestors who was born in Scotland had been updated by someone to say he was born in Dorset.

I know this because on every English census from 1851 onwards the place of birth is Scotland.

Jean

 

[kerryb]

I agree Joe

I found one yesterday where there were 5 trees all exactly the same of one of my families that tally with the verified information and with what I have found but the 6th tree had a death in Germany!!!!  The man actually died in Lincs where he was born and lived through 4 census returns.  He died in Lincs, I have the death certificate!

Where the death in Germany came from I can only guess.  I wasn't very good when I started this but now every single bit of information that goes into by tree I give the source, and date found and that gets passed on to anyone I happen to pass the info on to..  I never believe anything given to me until it is verified, as difficult as that can be sometimes and I desperately desperately wish that others would do the same. 

Kerry

[charlotteCH]

Checking  references and  verifying sources  is basic.
I avoid any data passed on which does not tell me the source in such a way that enables me to follow thru and satisfy myself that it's correct, and has been correctly passed on to me.

Trees online are a hazard- and certainly no way to proceed with reliable research.

charlotte

[Emjaybee]

I found my family on a tree with refs to living people, I have asked three times for them to contact me, then requested that all refs to my tree be removed but have received no reply.

I also have most of my relatives on the maternal side included in another tree where all the addresses are quoted with Malvern, Worcester etc all located in USA. I know that is wrong  we have census details from 1841 to prove it.

Bah, don't youj ust get mad?

Mike

[csh]

Firstly, I do not have my tree on the net.

While browsing Axxxxxxy family trees I come across quite frequently my gt grandfather is named in trees.

I have the shortest genealogy line in history, can name them on one hand., so why does his name crop up.

I check the trees if it is a public tree and cannot see any connection with him and the rest of the tree.

Please understand I might be wrong and is missing the missing link.

Because my line is short obviously I have spread out sidewards to include my gt gt grandfathers brothers and sisters to make my tree interesting for me.

Secondly, if while browsing these trees and you see an obvious mistake do you contact the owner of that tree to correct them.  I dont but I do get irritated by it.

I try to back up and have a paper trail for verification when I can, if not, even my research has a question mark on it.

[mongojoby]

Checking references and verifying sources is basic.
I avoid any data passed on which does not tell me the source in such a way that enables me to follow thru and satisfy myself that it's correct, and has been correctly passed on to me.

Trees online are a hazard- and certainly no way to proceed with reliable research.

charlotte

Completely agree Charlotte.  I do however see all the corrupted trees as a bit of a necessary evil, after being able to find some very useful information in others that has helped in my own research.

[mike175]

When I first started online research, I innocently downloaded information from several online trees. Some of them proved to be valuable links to previously unknown branches, others may well be accurate but I've yet to verify them . . . and then there are some I wish I'd never seen! 

All over the Internet information of all sorts is cut and pasted and errors are replicated to the point where 90% of it is unreliable to say the least. Even some of the news media seem to be guilty of plagiarising dubious "blogs", etc. instead of proper journalistic research but, as serious researchers we're all becoming more aware of the pitfalls and learning to check sources more thoroughly.

So . . . back to verifying sources. It's tedious work, but very satisfying when things fall into place. I just wish I'd been a little more rigorous with my earlier work.

Mike.

[kerryb]

I have a couple of well researched lines in my tree that when I started and knew no better I just copied and pasted to my tree.  However since then through my own research I have found mistakes in that research and also had contact with a some people who have pointed me in the right direction and I am always grateful for their help.

However when I have contacted other researchers because I have found different and verified information why do they have to get so defensive, I don't know how many times I've heard the phrase I've been doing my family tree for XXXX years.  So because they've been doing it for years longer than me, that makes them correct and me wrong.      It doesn't matter how many years have been spent on a tree, if its wrong, its WRONG!

Yes csh I get irritated too!

Kerry