Family tree errors

[meekhcs]

Seriously though, this is why we need to look at as much documentation as we can find.

Agreed. My Ancestry Tree is covered in notes of little snippets I have found that may eventually come together to further prove and support documentation I have, and it is very satisfying when this happens.

[Mick Loney]

I seem to have started something with my comments
I was merely trying to point out that some people show wrong information in their tree, despite all their own evidence/sources saying otherwise!
Why bother including a source to back up your reasoning, if you then completely ignore it.

[Hardwork]

Agree, Mick. I was just trying to point out that even the "evidence" is not always what it seems. I think this is a healthy debate if it broadens the way people view and review their genealogy. One of the interesting things about this hobby is that no matter how long you have been doing it, at whatever level, there always comes along a situation that upsets conventional experience and appearances. That is what helps keep it challenging. I wasn't trying to shoot down your comments, or the validity of them,in flames

[pinefamily]

Mick, I fully agree with your statement about online trees. It amazes me that people put in baptism details, and then the wrong parents, or sometimes even none.
This is a very interestingly debated thread.

[Guy]

It should also be remembered that though the internet has certainly increased access to erroneous trees and data such trees have been around for centuries and are not new. There are a number of “pedigrees” constructed by heralds in the 15th and 16th centuries that have been proved to contain “vanity” links to more prestigious families and at least one to be virtually a work of fiction.
In addition a number of books such as Sir Bernard Burke's Peerages and Baronetages of the United Kingdom (not to be confused with his son Sir John Burke's similarly titled publications) contain amazing errors. (see Hibernicus, “Incorrect Compilers of Genealogies”, Notes and Queries, 19 September 1874, p.232) Many of the Notes and Queries series are available online
https://tinyurl.com/yzqflmgn
Cheers
Guy

[pinefamily]

Very true, Guy. I'm not sure if I've mentioned on here or elsewhere, but according to Burke's Landed Gentry of 1847, my 4x great grandfather had no children. Only by looking at wills, land tax records, and even church warden accounts was I able to connect it all up. The church wardens very kindly left a seating arrangement for the church, and my ancestor was mentioned, along with his daughter and grandchildren.

[Mick Loney]

Well, I’ve seen it all now. Looking for a possible match for someone in my tree today, I found a likely tree, which showed right birth date (1892), right forename for parents who were born in 1860’s, but mother had a different surname to me. Checking that I hadn’t made a mistake, I looked at the PR for the couples marriage which they used as their source.

I found the problem, the marriage they had took place in the 1700’s!!!

You couldn’t make it up

[Brunes08]

Mistakes in research can cause interesting results! One tree on Ancestry has my father marrying a woman with the same surname as my mother but the wrong first name. This marriage occurred the year before my parents actually did marry. The mistake obviously occurred because the bridegroom in each case had the same name. As the owner of the tree also added the children from my parents' marriage, it appears that my siblings and I do not have the mother we thought we had.

[paulr1949]

There are quite a few trees on Ancestry (no doubt having information copied from one to another) that have my great great grandfather married to a random woman who lived in Ousden (near Newmarket): he was born in and baptised at Wangford (near Southwold) - the other side of the county! It caught me out initially as, before I had seen the baptism records, I visited Ousden on route to a brief stay in Suffolk (when we could do that sort of thing) which included a visit to the RO.