errors on trees

[Guy Etchells]

I think (said she, cautiously) that anyone who researched at all before online records became available - must be considered as an improver rather than a newbie!

snip

You may have a point there but do you have any alternative sources to back up your theory?

Perhaps I should have used the word neophyte or novice, but no, I definitely feel that a minimum of 40 years is required to develop research techniques with a further 20 dedicated to improving and honing them before one is qualified to call oneself a researcher.
Although with the rapidly changing skillsets required for internet research I wonder if the periods should be extended further.

Cheers
Guy

[StevieSteve]

I tried to add a message to my profile to say I'm happy to be contacted but there doesn't seem to be the facility to do this.

If you go to your profile you should see

Can you help other members?
Tell us if you are able to help other members who may be doing similar research.

Click the Edit button & tick the box that says you're happy to help other members

[msr]

I'm trying to do the math here.

One is born; grows to the point where an interest in family history takes hold; spends 60 years learning how to do it properly; then what?    Passes over and meets the ancestors?   
That would seem to indicate that all the 'professional' genealogists are pulling a fast one, and certainly belittles all who are researching their own families.

But, back to the question.  Yes Bee, at least try to make contact if your family members have been matched to incorrect people.   It may not do any good as some people are not prepared to listen even when proof is offered.   Best of luck anyway.

[hsfam]

Perhaps I should have used the word neophyte or novice, but no, I definitely feel that a minimum of 40 years is required to develop research techniques with a further 20 dedicated to improving and honing them before one is qualified to call oneself a researcher.
Although with the rapidly changing skillsets required for internet research I wonder if the periods should be extended further.

Cheers
Guy

Wow.

This one just stopped me in my tracks.

Since most people don't start family research until they are after 20 years old, wouldn't that mean then that nearly everyone under the age of 80 would have to be considered a novice?   

Or is that the point you are making - that everyone must consider themselves to be a novice? And by doing so, you are less likely to make assumptions in your research?

I'm just guessing here. I'm a bit confused and trying to understand your point. Unless you were being tongue in cheek and it got lost in translation?

Hi, msr, you were just replying as I was typing my response!

[majm]

I have a private tree on Ancestry with 2000 relatives on it. The direct ancestors have been extensively researched, and the rest, I have made sure really are related before they are included. I have lost count of the number of BMDs I have bought and the Parish records I have got from various counties.
I was therefore quite annoyed when I found my great uncle (my grandmother's brother) on a tree of someone in Australia. She also had my grandmother on her tree.
She has my great uncle as married with a son and living in Leicester. He never married and he always lived in Southampton.
I have his birth certificate and his death certificate. Her tree states that he died in 1952, I sent her a PM giving her all the details on his death certificate. He died in 1951 and his death was registered by his niece and the executor of his will was his sister. (Neither of these women are on her tree)
She did reply, saying that she was going to look into it!
That was six months ago!!! No changes on her tree.
I can understand her reluctance to remove him from her tree, because that would mean over half her tree is gone. i.e all my great uncles ancestors, who are nothing to do with her.
But why, oh why would you want a family tree to show to your family, which is no connection whatsoever to any of them?

Hi there,   

re Torre's question (But why, oh why would you want a family tree to show to your family, which is no connection whatsoever to any of them)

I think it has a very simple answer, or two.

a) she doesn't know how to remove Torre's great uncle (and his ancestors) from her tree
 
b) her immediate living family (assuming she has shared with them) is not interested in family history anyway, and have been politely avoiding looking at her 'work' from a quality perspective, and think that quantity is a valid measuring mark.

There's many family history buffs who do not upload their trees to online websites.   I suspect one of the main motives for the uploading of trees to the commercial websites is simply to seek out living relatives whom your own parents/aunts/uncles have not ever known about, and then say to your known siblings and cousins ..... I have found cousins who are five times removed from us, living next door to our cousins who are six times removed from us.    They must all be related to us because their ancestors were Ag Labs just like ours. 

Cheers,  JM

[Jomot]

I tried to add a message to my profile to say I'm happy to be contacted but there doesn't seem to be the facility to do this.

If you go to your profile you should see

Can you help other members?
Tell us if you are able to help other members who may be doing similar research.

Click the Edit button & tick the box that says you're happy to help other members

Yes, I know about that option but from memory it brings up a tick-list of things youre willing to do, such as take photo's - nothing that covers sharing information & no facility to add your own message.

[eadaoin]

I think (said she, cautiously) that anyone who researched at all before online records became available - must be considered as an improver rather than a newbie!

Perhaps I should have used the word neophyte or novice, but no, I definitely feel that a minimum of 40 years is required to develop research techniques with a further 20 dedicated to improving and honing them before one is qualified to call oneself a researcher.

I think 5 years pre-internet qualifies me as an improver! and another 15 on the internet makes me a super improver!
And I'm a researcher, because I do research, but not an expert, because I've more to learn.
I take your point about new techniques needed to deal with the internet - I'm lucky really, as I live in Dublin, where most of my sources are available. If I get fed up with the internet, I can go into the National Archive, Library or GRO (usually do this for BMDs, as a number of mine seem to be missing from familysearch).

[Bee]

I've looked at the trees that are wrong and I've identified 2 that may be distant cousins, one of which the owner doesn't appear to have logged in for a long time so I've just added comments, the other owner appears to have been active quite recently so I've made contact and explained my concerns. Whether or not I get any response is another matter.

The other trees I'm ignoring completely as some of them have my relative dying in Selby, Illinois, USA instead of Selby Yorkshire, another tree has her dying in 1857 (correct date) in Selby Yorkshire and then reappearing on the 1881 census in Settle.

[iolaus]

One branch of my family have a load - yes it's taken off of a family member I 'met' on line - but it's from the family bible (family member descended from eldest child so inherited it) so while I haven't (yet) backed all that up I'm happy to accept it as fact (I have copies of it all too now)