totally tempted to tell

[CarolA3]

.......... also had his date and place of death : "Papua New Guinea". 

If they have any supporting evidence for that one it'll require a complete re-write of the history books.

What's wrong with that

He was obviously on his way back from holiday on the Great Barrier Reef and his flight was diverted to PNG.  Happened a lot in those days.

Carol

P.S.  Same story with the Lost Tribes of Israel.

[Melbell]

I have also 'suffered' in the same way- but in my case (twice) the researchers have posh all-singing all-dancing websites which make the information look very plausible.

Is there anyone with an 'in' to people who write articles for popular FH magazines, who could write something about this which would perhaps alert sloppy researchers to take more care?

Just a thought!

Melbell.

[Maggiemae]

Is there anyone with an 'in' to people who write articles for popular FH magazines, who could write something about this which would perhaps alert sloppy researchers to take more care?

I second this suggestion and add my own suggestion that Ancestry be petitioned to make the default for their Tree's Private. My thinking is a large numbers of public trees are only public because that is the default when a tree is started.

MM

[jettejjane]

Melbell and  MM, I am with you. When I joined ancestry in ignorance I started my tree not realising everyone could access it.  I thought it was just for me.  I didn't put much on it and luckily never added all my finds. I was very naive in those days.

Jane

[StevieSteve]

I didn't put much on it and luckily never added all my finds.

But if you had, then maybe people wouldn't keep getting your ancestors wrong?

Is there anyone with an 'in' to people who write articles for popular FH magazines, who could write something about this which would perhaps alert sloppy researchers to take more care?

Trouble is, they'd be the ones least likely to read it!

[jettejjane]

I didn't put much on it and luckily never added all my finds.

But if you had, then maybe people wouldn't keep getting your ancestors wrong?

Fair point but even from what little I put they could find out for themselves if they wanted to.  Its all out there somewhere, I managed to find stuff!  They could also contact me and see if we have a connection  that would be better.

I will never put my tree online I do it for myself not others. OK so that's maybe  a selfish attitude.  I may look at others trees but only for curiosity value now. I would not take anything as gospel without obtaining the proof myself  and would not add anyone to my tree just because someone else has.

Don't mean to ruffle any feathers here, this is only my opinion and how I feel about the subject.

Jane

[youngtug]

  In this case they not only had a date of birth for their revered ancestor ( a minor post-Roman British kinglet ) but also had his date and place of death : "Papua New Guinea". 

Maec

 Those mudmen, they got everywhere.

[Andrew Tarr]

Well my simple rules of research are:
Name - should be known
year or approx. dob
Birth AREA
 and later on Employment

and of course its handy to know family names.

These obvious rules are reasonably easy to follow post-1837 (or at least from 1851 onwards).  I recently posted about the Pattinsons of Alston around 1800.  There are several Ancestry trees whose owners have netted all children born to Thomas and Mary between 1815 and 1829, not considering whether a series of baptism dates 6 months apart mattered.  Now that FreeREG has published complete baptism records we can separate the Joiner from the Miner, finding two families married in 1815 and 1821, with more consistent progeny.  Even then, the 1841 census shows that one of the Miner's children was really the Joiner's.  I have reported this to one or two owners, with one grateful reply.

I suspect that many - perhaps most - of the false trees were spawned from one corrupt original.