I love SUGGESTED hints from other trees and records on various genealogy websites where I have some basic family trees posted. My full tree with the documentation is on my own computer (and backed up) in RootsMagic. I still need to add more citations there. Some of the hints I get about possible matches, names, places, dates, etc. are great and many appear to be from outer space. I recently posted the following paragraph on my own Facebook wall and the number of people who agreed with me and some who made their own comments, show that it’s a large number of genealogists at all levels of experience agree with me and are likewise frustrated:
“34 trees on a website include one of my great grandfathers. I’m thinking the person whose tree says his daughter born in1867 had a child born in 1710 may need to evaluate that online tree and maybe check some records. Another lists his mother as living to 110 years of age. She died decades before that. Oh, and this mother is listed as having had a daughter born in 1821 in the U.S. while she was only 11 and still in Ireland. I could go on, but it’s making me sad to see these. Why can’t people see these obvious errors?????”
Don’t simply accept the hints, shaky leaves, matches, and other clues. Look for records to be sure it fits the family you are researching. Look at the approximate age of the mother when shown a possible relationship to a child. Stop and think about the hints that tell you the first child was born in Germany, the second in Missouri, the third in Italy, the fourth in Michigan, all while the parents show consistently on Wisconsin state and federal censuses. Perhaps we are dealing with a lot of people who just happen to have the same name. If the father died in a war, it’s not going to be his child that the mother gives birth to about five years later. The 9 months needed from conception to birth (or close to nine months) has always been the same. Do I use all these hints as clues for research? Absolutely. Well, most of them. I want to then find records to back up the information in the hint or to dispel the connection.
Many do not realize that these obvious errors can cause issues when others blindly follow what they have “compiled.” Think about these reasons. These erroneous trees complicate research into military repatriation cases, probate, land titles, Native American enrollment issues, adoption triad matters, and medical research. Our fellow genealogists do view other trees for clues in their own research and in research businesses.
The too often used phrase “it’s just for my family” should never be used again. I’ve written it before, shouldn’t your own family matter? What if your 10 year old grand niece uses those details from your tree in her fifth grade project. Do you want her to get a failing grade for not noticing the tree shows great great grandma is shown as five years old and giving birth to a child?
© 2020, Paula Stuart-Warren. All rights reserved.
I look for hints on other websites and find many that are sent to are from families that I
have never heard of. I look to see if they are possibly from that line, But the place or dates are incorrect. The names are not even near the names I have in my tree and that someone has connected the person in my lines to the incorrect person with the same and about the same dates and same area. I add a note to the entry explaining that it is
an incorrect connection and put a document in the note to back my note up.
Love it! I was researching my family in West Virginia and seen in the census that one of the neighbors had the same last name as my other half. So I looked at that record and the associated trees…just in case. My other half has always told me what a mischievous person his grandfather was and there he was attached to this stranger’s tree along with his sons. No documentation and I doubt there is anyway that he could be part of that family.
Funny — without having seen this post I gave a speech at my Toastmasters club on pretty much the same topic (geared toward non-genealogists, but the title was “Don’t Believe Everything You See and referring to online genealogical data bases).
It doesn’t make sense, does it, that someone would go to the trouble to even have a tree if they don’t intend to read it! The timeline issues and geography issues seem so basic, even if you don’t do the research yourself. Thanks for your post.