I am obsessed with genealogy...I love exploring my family's history. And, not being perfect, I make mistakes, and usually I can tell you what documentation led to the mistake. But I just ran across an online family tree of someone who has my immediate family in it...and EVERYTHING is wrong. I mean, there is just no place to start telling this person the error of their ways! I wrote a polite note on my father's record, but then I saw the futility of trying to correct the 2990+ records this person has accumulated in the past 2 months. And, the tree is public. sigh
How do you all deal with problems like this? I guess that is one reason I keep my tree private - I don't want people 'yelling' at me when I make a mistake! :-) How many more people will copy all this bad info? Do you check for your family's info in public trees?
How do you all deal with problems like this? I guess that is one reason I keep my tree private - I don't want people 'yelling' at me when I make a mistake! :-) How many more people will copy all this bad info? Do you check for your family's info in public trees?
I have used others trees for information, but nothing goes into my genealogy software until I have verified the information with reliable sources. It's too bad there are multiple errors with the above family tree.
ReplyDeleteI use online family trees for guidance when I hit a brick wall but I try to find sources in census records, cemetery records and newspaper articles to make sure it is correct. And there are quite a few times where I have had to back an entire generation out...which is why I try and be more careful. But then again, I've been doing this for over 20 years, I SHOULD be careful! :-)
ReplyDeleteMany times I see that someone has copied part of a tree from Ancestry and pasted it on to theirs, thus rendering many generations out of whack. Some of the results are hilarious.
ReplyDeleteI love your blog. It has inspired me to do one myself.
Pat Cannon Willis
If it is a public tree, I would make a comment on it, so at least others can view the comment if they are researching that ancestor.
ReplyDeleteMindy - That is what is frustrating. I made a comment on my dad and my grandpa's record and the guy wrote back "we're not related". That's all he said. I suggested he might be confusing like-named people and gave him the research why he is incorrect. Oh well! I tried. Hopefully other researchers will be more careful if they come across his.
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