Genealogy Chat

Oh Judy, it's you !!! I wondered who it was , he he. M

AHA! Thanks, KenSE! I see you can also hide living relatives, which is useful. :)

If you click on ACCOUNT at the top of the page you will have to put your password in again . Then you can give yourself a board name.

At present if anyone clicks on Unknown they can see the name the system knows you by.

Can anyone tell me why, despite being signed in to Genes Reunited, I come up as 'Unknown'?

I don't make my trees public, they are for my own research and storage only. However, if someone appears to have a genuine connection, I will allow them to see the tree. Since I keep them for my own research, I'm sure there are errors there, which I (like others) correct as I go along. I'm still in the process of buying certificates - and yes, have a few that are clearly wrong, and those people get scratched from my tree.

If someone has copied them in the meantime, well, like 'Larzus', I feel that's their own silly fault. It's up to each of us to check everything.

However, I DO add families who have married in. There are several reasons for this - one is to keep track of my family, and to provide information for future generations of THEIR offspring who may want to follow up on their family history, and also, I've found that back in my own family's previous generations, cousins have married cousins and so the 'other' families have turned out to be genuine, blood relatives anyway. I think there was more of that going on in past times than some like to admit.

We each have to research our family histories in our own way.

Having said all that, I don't understand why someone would copy reams of someone else's research wholesale, either. For me, it's no good unless it's accurate, and anyway, where's the fun if you don't do your own research?

Well said larzus, I totally agree, it is disappointing that nobody has " put me right " and it only goes to show that nobody else is doing any leg work here !! I would love someone to contact me saying Hang on a minute, did you know so and so actually married so and so, I have the certificate to prove it.

I too, have spent hours "walking " up and down roads or even whole villages trying to find someone I am pretty sure should be there, checking out witnesses and in laws, just in case. That was how I found my gt Grandad, boarding with his future wife's brother in law to be.

My Grandfather's tree is fine up to my gt gt grandfather, who although he lived in a small Devonshire town shared a name with four others born in the same year. It wasn't until I bought " his " BC a few years back and his parents names didn't match those on the cert that I realised my error. For some reason he was born about thirty miles away from the family home and curiously, so was his sister, the following year but thirty miles in the opposite direction. He was, however, the only one who ended up living in London.

Thanks to parish records I can take the family back to the 1600s so it is really only his date of birth and maybe the actual place that I would gain from spending any more. On most other trees though he also goes back to the 1600s but with the wrong family from 1840 back because originally I had the wrong parents for him on my tree.

Last week I thought I would have another crack at it and ordered another BC for him. Not a good idea when suffering with a heavy cold, I opened it yesterday full of hope that of the remaining four, this might be THE ONE only to find I had ordered the same one again. Silly old fool, that's now twenty quid wasted !! As well as the "wrong " brother's BC and parents marriage certs I had.

The other one is my gt gt grandmother who I have had some help with on the help boards. Lots of people have her death for 1900, I know this is not correct as I bought that cert, and it is not her but according to almost every tree she died then, shame is I can't find her, she just disappeared in a puff of smoke around 1895. I will find her one day though, I am sure. M ;-)

I think you have a very sensible approach there larzus.

I've seen versions of this conversation on several different sites over the past 15 years. I would like to know whether I am doing this in an acceptable way.

I have some very difficult branches in my tree. The easy ones are, well, easy and other people have already done them. I take their information, verify it using my data subscriptions and leave it as is. I like to focus on the challenges, the lines everyone gave up on.

Sometimes that means following siblings and their spouses, seeking for times when they were in company with my direct family. Sometimes it means following the trees of those who were witness at their wedding or informant of the birth of a child. Sometimes I spot a likely name living in the same district and follow it just to see if that person hailed from the same little village three or four generations back. This tenuous tracking has paid off often enough that I keep doing it. When I follow siblings and friends if there is any way to link the data accurately I will do it and hold them in my tree. I also never discard information. I did that a few times at the start then had to go re-research when it became useful.

As a result my tree is becoming quite big too. Over 3,000 individuals in fact. I know every one of them and something about their lives. But at a casual glance it probably looks like the random data collection talked about here. Might this cause helpers to disregard me as a valid family researcher?

On the original topic, I have a publically available tree and sometimes I place speculative names on there, only to delete them when I learn they don't belong. I generally put a clue such as "John (unconfirmed son) born 1818" so people will know. If people take this data and post it wrongly it's just their own silly fault. Even if I genuinely thought a person belongs and was incorrect, I don't feel responsible for others who simply accept it. It's up to all of us to check the validity of the data we find. As we all know, even properly researched, published books can have it wrong. Eventually someone will pop up in that family who realises Aunt Fran did the tree after dementia set in and it will all be made right.

I wonder if this name collecting on trees is a kind of cyber-hoarding? Hoarding is a very real phenomena and I'm sure the cyber version will be 'discovered' at some point in the medical future.

It's a bit disappointing that Maryanna hasn't had anyone contacting her with corrections to her long-ago newbie errors though. I would very much hope someone will contact me when I am wrong. I'm counting on it, in fact. That's exactly why my tree is public.

:-)

last year, after providing a relative with some info ( we share the same gg grandparents).
He emailed me to let me in on a secret and that we were all part of a " well known, highly respected family" and asked me how I felt about our extremely humble gg grandparents being so " Well Connected"
I guess I was supposed to be overwhelmed or something, and I am not really sure why I needed to know this.

Anyway, rather than burst his bubble,I had to be quite diplomatic in my response because neither he nor I have any genetic link to the family in question.
It is HIS wife who bears the most tangible of connections.
Sometimes, I despair!

I am sure we can all find a link somewhere or another to the great and the good of history. Due to a few " good marriages" an Uncle of mine can be traced right back to Alfred the Great. Now that sounds all well and good and there is plenty of documentation to back it up, with many Royal Marriages along the way, BUT and it's a big BUT. He isn't "blood". He isn't really mine, he married into "US". and then to put the tin lid on things, had no children.

My lot were just the usual, ag labs and printers and builders and tailors and soldiers and sailors, like most of us have.

I have now decided that my extremely tenuous and far fetched link to Alfred isn't good enough, anyway he wasn't much of a cook. and I do like a good biscuit. I need to do better, not sure if I can manage God though.

I need to think very carefully about this ,Jill, I quite fancy the idea of Atlantis, if I can find the record books or Alexander the Great or maybe Ancient Egypt. Nefertiti, perhaps ? King Tut ? I am sure one of those long ago sailors must have made it as far as Egypt. Come to think of it they would have been long ago .......... but then I went to see King Tut in Cairo Museum in 1968, maybe I was looking at my ancestor, come to think of it I did feel some sort of a "connection". That must be it !!! All that gold could be mine !! That also explains my attachment to black eyeliner, of course, it's in the blood.

I am now sure this is the way to go and will make up , sorry, investigate my new tree. Watch this space, I may be some time.

I might need to find myself a new name. Any suggestions ? M

:-D

I just took a look. Beats me but I'm thinking of taking a free sub out to build another tree. I've always wanted to learn about Norse, or Ancient Greek or Egyptians. I could build trees for all of them. It would be different wouldn't it? :-P

Lots of us have had this sort of discussion before Maryanna. I think that we have pretty much concluded that it's an ego sort of thing where someone wants to impress friends of family of the size of their tree. It's just pathetic and nothing you can do about it in reality. Worst is when you've gone to great expense to build a tree. There are half a dozen GR members who have access to my tree and I have access to theirs and it's been that way for a couple of years. I was asked for mine a few months ago but became immediately suspicious.

I just will not allow access beyond those who already have it. If someone wants it, they have to satisfy me that they are genuine first and that isn't easy any more.

The tree they have in their name has no value because it is a work of fiction with all the crap they have added. If others are stupid enough to copy it, it just becomes even more crap. Have you thought of building a totally fictitious tree and passing that on. I've sure that many of us would be glad to help with something good enough to look real but obviously garbage. :-D :-D

I can't believe how many "Gods" and "God Knows" there are. Who would have thought it ? We must be moving in very esteemed circles ! M

You don't have to go to Ancestry to find silly trees. Just do a tree search here for the surname God and click on the "born in" column to find some.

My great aunt and great uncle married in Lancashire in 1902. 3 days later, they sailed from Liverpool for the US


I had a very small tree on ancestry with their names ............ somewhere to park them as I tried to find some more information on the husband.

I forgot to change it from Public to Private when I changed my larger tree over.


About 2 years ago, I got a tip that they were on someone's tree

Sure enough, they were there ............................ parents of children born between about 1804 and 1820 :-0

I poked around a little bit in his tree ............

............ the parents of those children had the same names as my relations, were born in the same place, had married in Lancashire, and then went to New Jersey, just as my relatives had done. BUT they had done it in 1802, not 1902

So ........... he'd picked the right names, probably from a leaf tip from ancestry, but had not noticed the date differences.

I emailed him about it, and also left a comment on his tree to warn others.


Fortunately, he paid attention .................. and had removed my relations within about 4 days.




sylvia

Ahhhhhh ................. Right .......... Well that should keep us all busy for a while. ;-)

To be fair...

Matthew Pinsent's ancestry on WDYTYA had him connected back to God ....

'one of the documents that Matthew views takes things a little too far: a beautiful medieval roll, created at a time when kings claimed to have the divine right to govern, purports to shows the relationship of British monarchy to Jesus, King David, Adam and Eve and even the Supreme Being himself. “At the top of your pedigree,” Matthew is told, “there is God.”

So if the person on Ancestry believes they have a similar connection then they too could claim to be descended from God......I did try tracing the tree forward from Adam but :-S

Call me a cynic but I still don't think I will bother following the connection suggestion up :-D

Chris

Well Chris, I think that one must take first prize. How funny. Someone must be living in Cloud Cuckoo Land !! Christmas could get a bit pricey ! Love it.

Looking on Ancestry one of my gt gt grandfathers seems to have been married to three different women at the same time. Different wives on different trees. I must be the only one to have actually bought the certs. M

A couple of weeks ago I clicked on a possible match for a tree on Ancestry....

Immediately suspicious as the tree had 120,000 plus names.

First page of alphabetical names included
Adam, Garden of Eden
then
Adam, Garden of Eden, Israel.

Other half was looking over my shoulder and said....

"Well the Garden of Eden was actually in Syria at that time"

I don't think I will contacting them if they can't get that right ;-)

Shame though to loose a possible 120000 plus 'relatives' :-D

Chris

If information is copied from anothers tree, and is not checked, all you get is a fantasy tree, which bears little, if any to a family tree. Rather pointless, I think.
:-S

I learnt this lesson a long time ago when innocent. I never open my tree now, have a tree on Ancestry which is only open to two people. Most of the trees on Ancestry are incorrect with terrible errors.

Carol