When you find an error on someone else's tree, do you tell them?

[Josephine]

There was a time when I would have been eager to help anyone but that time has passed. Now, when I see glaring errors about my ancestors, I just shake my head and leave it at that. I don't know how or why they've paired g-granny with so-and-so and I don't have the time to correct their mistakes especially when, in all likelihood, they won't even bother to thank me for my time and effort.

On the other hand, if I'm corresponding with someone who willingly shares information with me that I don't already have, I will gladly send them info they don't have on people in their direct line. I will probably never hear from them again but at least there's been a mutual give and take and I won't wind up feeling like a sucker who's just been used (as has happened in the past).

Part of the reason why I do family history research is because I want to make real connections with relatives but I've come to the realization that most people are only interested in gathering data for their files and do not care about making friends with newly-discovered relatives. (And that's fine. It just means we have different motives and hopes or expectations.)

So, Ms. Stranger wants to plop someone from my family into her tree and marry them off to someone else. I say, let her; what do I care, as long as my own tree is carefully (and expensively) proven? Why should I, once again, provide thousands of hours and dollars worth of research for free to a complete stranger who won't even say thank you before putting it all online and claiming it as her own research?

I keep hoping to find someone who has done more research into my tree than I have but anytime I find anything online, it's info I naively sent to a distant cousin, not realizing it would go online (except for two cousins who had my permission). And, of course, that info is correct.

 

[SwissGill]

I found that my German ancestors had been "adopted", i.e. my great uncle had been resurrected from the dead and transplanted in Ameirca.

Not an uncommon occurrence but one that at first made me annoyed. I contacted the tree owner (To my amazement, he just said he added "my ancestors" in the interest of "research".

I have added the correct ancestry under "comments" on his family tree (much to his annoyance).

However he has about three family trees.....

[BevL]

I totally agree with you all, but still it does rankle when you know there are glaring errors in their trees - like my 2 x grandfather.  I will change the names, but as an example his name was William and he had a son when he arrived here in Australia named william john, but as some people just copy everything from other peoples trees, poor old bill is left out and his wife (first and last names, date of birth, county and country of origin correct) is now married to their son William John!!
Bev

[geno500]

I suppose we should expect it because we research family history and we know that people have not changed over hundreds of years,they still have the same failings,so people taking short cuts to find their tree should not surprise us,you find people who are researching a large number of names do not have time to fill out a line and make certain that what they have is correct,thankfully very seldom do you have to tell somebody that the male line they are tracing back is not there's ,in my tree I have a femail who worked as a miner!! and had 3 children all boys in three different places without marrying ,so I sometimes get a email asking about that line,it is not easy to explain to people that they have no way back

[bykerlads]

I've rather deduced that folk just don't like being told, however gently, that they're wrong.
In my case I've come across second cousins on-line who had been given incorrect info by older relatives about events in the family's past. I politely suggested that there might have been some misunderstanding about the information and sent copies of birth and death certs which prove that there had been errors, (more like elaborations or mis-tellings of family stories really).Nothing scandalous, I should add.
The result was complete silence from both cousins ever since.
Conversely, I have been very grateful to the local lady who corrected one of my errors and who generously gave me much valuable info about my family.

[jaywit]

It is very annoying when you find trees that are so wrong it's almost laughable.

One I found recently had a woman giving birth at the age of 93

All it took was a small amount of research to work out that three generations of men all with exactly the same name all married women with the Christian name Elizabeth.

So they had attached a child born to the third Elizabeth to the first one, surely they could work out their mistake?

Oh and no I didn't contact them, neither have I contacted the tree owner with my father on their tree, incorrect Christian name for him, but still married to my mother, can't they use FreeBMD?

[geno500]

I think we have all come across family trees with the most glaring of errors,I find the early American lines are sometimes altered to fit,one line was from James Town,in Virginia around 1618 before Mayflower, people have been trying to connect the line to England for many years in fact in 1948 a doctor who had researched the name for many years said he was certain it would never be joined with England,well people have altered wills have concentrated on a town in England with the same  name,have altered Visitations of Devon to fit the tree,these people have spent a fortune in research fees,the whole thing is a mess,I spent about 12 months trying to make sense of it ,and gave up