Family Trees on websites

[tillypeg]

It's it annoying when you look at someone's public tree on A......y's website and you know for a fact that it's full of mistakes!  I pointed out to one person months ago that they had the wrong census entries and wrong marriage and wrong parents for people who are my husband's ancestors (all certs & Parish Register entries to prove) but they haven't bothered to amend the entries.  So, along comes another person who thinks they might be related, sees that tree, copies all the wrong details and bingo, there's another wrong line.  I did politely offer the correct baptisms, marriages etc but when I looked today, it's still incorrect and all so misleading.  What can you do?!  I really feel like putting all my tree details on that particular site so that anyone looking will find the correct stuff.  Answers on a postcard, please ............ 

[Steve G]

 Simple answer, Tillypeg? I completely ignore Any 'Hints' from fellow users Trees.

 As ye rightly infer, there's just so much utter rubbish being passed around by some of the headless chickens on there, it's simply not worth the effort paying them any attention.

[mother25]

I'd agree...best to ignore these fools. In the main they usually turn out to be 'name collectors' with no interest in the dates etc., and definitely no interest in getting the facts right 
I know it's hard to ignore, but at least your tree is correct with everything verified, so let them carry on with their errors.

[sharonf73]

Someone recently got in touch with me to say I had the wrong information in my tree (I seemingly had their relatives that are not related to me).  As I couldn't prove it at the time - the information was collected when I first started the research and hadn't taken a note of the full details - I decided to copy my tree, take out those names and re-publish.  I still work off my original tree at home, until I can get to NRH to prove to myself that this person was correct. 

I felt that if she was right and I was wrong I didn't want to give out the wrong information, but I also didn't want to delete what I had in case I was the one that was correct!

[Preshous]

I know it's hard to ignore, but at least your tree is correct with everything verified, so let them carry on with their errors.

I could not agree with you more. Check check and check again.

[tillypeg]

Yes Sharon, I know what you mean, but this person had put up three links to wrong census entries - all for Mark ... instead of Matthew.... all different ages and different birth places!  I know that we all have discrepancies and the enumerators were told a load of fibs sometimes (and had to read illegible scrawls) but I feel he should have looked into it more before posting on A......y.  We all get hunches and gut feelings about tenuous links but surely it is best to do a bit more research before putting it all out into the public domain.  I guess some people just don't like gaps in their trees and put the nearest thing into them sometimes.  Perhaps I should try & look up "his" relatives and send him the right links! Note to self: must be more tolerant and try to simmer down.  lol.

[Luzzu]

I think the worst one I've seen where my family is involved is where my gt, gt grandmother is married to some chap in Wisconsin.  My gt, gt grandmother never left Manchester and the man she married never left Manchester and they are buried together in Southern Cemetery.  I have often thought of getting in touch to put the owner right but when I look at his tree I think what's the point.  I also keep my trees private on both A******y and G***s and am very cautious who I open them to.

I also smile at the "advanced" researcher  who has been researching for 2 years and has 70,000 plus names on his tree whilst I have been doing my tree for 30 years and haven't reached 1,000 yet.  I always think if you are going to make it up as a work of fiction, what's the point.

[mother25]

That's exactly what I mean about 'name collectors'    They just want to boast about having a large number of people in their tree, correct or not 
I had a similar difficulty with someone who claimed to be related to me through her husband's family    She opened her tree to me and when I checked I noticed she had some dates apparently wrong. I got my grand-daughter to check it all with me and we compared what I had already got, and had certs etc., to prove it all, and sent an e-mail to this person, giving her the details. After a while I got a reply to the effect that I was wrong and her dates were definitely correct....never mind that she had one relative giving birth to two children within 6 months 
What had happened was, she had noticed that I had some family members with the same names as some of hers, and from the same city. She just assumed they must be the same family regardless, and has so far refused to acknowledge her errors.
However she did say something that was quite revealing....she told me she wasn't going to change her tree because she had reached her target of 1,000 names and had no plans to change that 

[maxxangel]

However she did say something that was quite revealing....she told me she wasn't going to change her tree because she had reached her target of 1,000 names and had no plans to change that 

That's brilliant!! It's made my day! I'm off to get 1000 random names now and make a tree with them! 

On a more serious note, I do find matching to other trees can come in useful, but I always make sure to confirm it myself. I got a bit carried away when I first started and added a load of names going back on one line, until I realised that as I went back I was returning to a later date again. Couldn't figure out why a mother was born after her daughter to start with!!