Four years of wasted research Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!

[HarrisonHart]

very early in your research, if you don't check out one key person closely enough, and is soon forgotten and assumed to be correct, then everyone else who is the basis of that key person - WILL check out - but still wont be your family.  So it can seem like all the puzzle pieces are falling together.  its just you were building the wrong puzzle from the start.

[BevL]

My heartache was with a great uncle in South Africa, till I found out differently this year as getting information was very hard.  With the information I was able to get, everything matched so well until I got the full name of the person I thought was the correct one and all my work went down the drain!
As you can see you have the sympathy of people who have gone down the same road as yourself, but now you can get on getting all the details of the right one.
Bev

[barmaid1971]

A few weeks ago I wasted a whole week trying to track down Mr BM's grandad and eventually discovered I was following the wrong man.  I was gutted.

If I'd be at it for four years I'd be beside myself. 

Although he is not my only "mistake".  I doubt there are many people out there who havent done this.

Mind you, it would help significantly if my ancestors didnt fib quite so much.........

[KGarrad]

Been there too!!

My maternal grandfather died before I was born, and gran marries again, so I had very little information to go on - and even less experience!

So, how was I to know that there were 2 Sydney Sims born in Wiltshire around the same time?!

So, I spent some time chasing Sidney George Sims, rather than Sidney Llewellyn Sims - but not 4 years, fortunately!!


But sometimes it is understandable?
Another line I have are the Vanstone family from North Devon.
On the 1851 census, 44% of them share just 7 forenames!
And multiple occurrences of husband and wife having the same names!!
It's a nightmare trying to figure who belongs to who, and I'm not sure I have it all figured out yet!

[Kaybron]

My grandmother, Ada Smith, was supposedly born about 1880 in Linton, Kent. Her 2 marriage certificates give a father's name, Albert John Oscar Smith. Her children have been told that she was an orphan and was brought up by others. The earliest I can find a record for my grandmother is in the 1901 Census. I have purchased many Ada Smith birth certificates and at one stage managed to solve a very complex family situation for an Ada Green/Smith. I even purchased the Will of this Ada's mother as I believed the Ada being investigated could be my grandmother.  Unfortunately not. Every so often I relook at my research and go back to searching for an Albert John Oscar Smith with a daughter Ada born 1880.

[eadaoin]

And sometimes, what seems to be wasted research, isn't!

There are four Miles Breslins lurking at the same time, and I followed up all four, just in case, knowing that three were "wasted". Doing this, I almost had a one-name-study!
Eventually, I found which one was correct, but kept the other stuff handy - good idea, one of the other Miles was a distant cousin, leading to vast numbers of 3rd and 4th cousins.

And a third Miles is a direct ancestor of  a neighbour round the corner!

[philipsearching]

The research might not have turned up the person you wanted to find, but if it disproves a hypothesis then it is not wasted. 

I put a "brick-wall" search aside for a few years and when I tried a fresh look I found it very useful to know what I had discounted and on what evidence.  I still haven't found my relative, but at least I am not repeating a search for the red herring!

All the best
Philip

[bevj]

I just think it's remarkable that however unusual a name may be, there is always someone else born with the same name within a year or two.
I spent a long time going down the wrong path with my great grandma Florence Mabel Elmer.  Not the commonest of names.
I found her born in Tendring Essex and spent hours researching her family.
Thank goodness she had the courtesy to get married in Edinburgh.  The Scottish marriage cert proved without doubt that there was another Florence out there, born one year earlier in London.

Bev

[pinefamily]

While what Guy has said is true, it is also true that most (if not all) of us have fallen into the trap of "finding" the wrong ancestor. Possibly a by-product of having so much at our fingertips online?