Lazy Research

[Andrew Tarr]

I took a 14 day free trial recently and picked a good hint for the father of a illegitimate relative - I need to go the library mentioned to check it is correct. (24 hour flight each way).

Can that library not help you out by Email?  Or find a local researcher?

[JanPennington]

Something to consider for New Year.  Although I may be moving back to UK in 2017 and then I can visit all the places that have information on my family.
Jan

[groom]

I took a 14 day free trial recently and picked a good hint for the father of a illegitimate relative - I need to go the library mentioned to check it is correct. (24 hour flight each way).

Can that library not help you out by Email?  Or find a local researcher?

Or put details on here so someone can help.

[LizzieW]

I found a tree earlier this week where the person seemed to be hedging her bets.  She had a man married with 7 children, names of children and wife all correct, places they lived on various census all correct, then for some unknown reason she had him in the navy and had attached proof with a form giving his name and lots of other sailors!  The only problem was at the time he was supposed to be in the navy he was living with his wife and 7 children and working as a labourer.

I've no idea why she suddenly threw in the naval man, but it certainly wasn't the same man as the rest of her tree.

[Sloe Gin]

You'll probably find that a lot of those are people who took up offers, did their tree during that time after being inspired by a programme such as WDYTYA, and haven't looked at it since.

Exactly, and many will have found that it was much more complicated than they expected.  They may be aware that they have gone wrong somewhere, and found it too daunting to continue.

What never fails to surprise me is why people get so worked up about other people's mistakes. By all means browse trees for hints, but as long as you're happy with your own conclusions, leave them to it.

[groom]

What never fails to surprise me is why people get so worked up about other people's mistakes. By all means browse trees for hints, but as long as you're happy with your own conclusions, leave them to it.

I agree - if they want to believe that my father was buried in America, or that my grandfather married a completely different woman, in spite of my giving them proof that they were wrong, that's up to them. I'm sure that my ancestors don't care!

[Sloe Gin]

I agree - if they want to believe that my father was buried in America, or that my grandfather married a completely different woman, in spite of my giving them proof that they were wrong, that's up to them. I'm sure that my ancestors don't care!

I am sure that almost all of the "relocated" ancestors were caused by the old drop-down menus on Ancestry.  When you entered a place name, it would auto-fill with a US bias, so unless you paid close attention you might find that instead of (for example) Birmingham UK, it had recorded a Birmingham in the USA.  People might not have noticed this, or if they did, not known how to correct it.  Probably a lot of them had only very basic computer skills. 

We really should make allowances for people not being as adept as ourselves in various ways.

[Andrew Tarr]

As always, people will believe what they want to believe - as we all do too, I guess.

[andrewalston]

I recently sent messages to a dozen people regarding an obvious set of mistakes which seem to have been copied from tree to tree - all regarding the same person.

I carefully worded the text so as to put most of the blame on Ancestry's gazetteer - they had Manchester in Jamaica rather than Lancashire, death in a particular street in Dumbarton rather than the same street in Dewsbury, and a child born in Virginia, of all places.  If you give people the chance to blame someone else, they are more likely to take action.

I gave details as to where the correct information could be sourced.

I only sent the message to subscribers who had been online during the previous week.

ONE has replied - and they have updated their tree!