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An important lesson for all researchers

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  • An important lesson for all researchers

    A friend of mine wants a family tree for her husband's upcoming significant birthday and a keen researcher friend of her's offered to put it together. She did a huge amount of work, and put together a comprehensive tree going back to the early 17th century on his paternal line. Very impressive stuff.

    My friend is now arranging for the tree to be drawn up professionally in beautiful script and framed ready for presentation, but being a cautious type (and also being a bit proud of the extensive tree I think) she asked me to cast my eye over it before she sends it off to the calligrapher.

    Sadly it is immediately apparent that her friend had a bit of trouble identifying a birth record for the subject's grandfather in the 1880s - but no problem because she found him in the 1891 census as the grandson of a couple (with the same surname as the boy) so she happily carried on up that family line for a further 6 generations..... doing diligent and well sourced research at every stage, spending a lot of time (and money) doing so, but all of it on the wrong family !

    A bit more time spent at that stage would have revealed that the child was indeed a grandson, but of the grandmother only - the grandfather came into the picture much later and has no family connection to the child at all other than as a "step-grandad" - the grandson appears to have taken his surname to hide a couple of generations of illegitimate births.

    The researcher friend is obviously very proud of her work, has published the (wrong) tree on Ancestry and is looking forward to seeing the finished tree being presented but doesn't yet know of my findings - that's going to be a difficult conversation to be had at some point !

    The lesson to be learnt - never make assumptions from a single source without finding evidence to verify your theory and NEVER skip past a generation you are having a problem with and carry on researching based on an assumption or guess !
    Retired professional researcher, and ex- deputy registrar, now based in Worcestershire. Happy to give any help or advice I can ( especially on matters of civil registration) - contact via PM or my website www.chalfontresearch.co.uk
    Follow me on Twittter @ChalfontR

  • #2
    Very sound advice Anthony The friend may be upset at first but I'm sure will have learned a valuable lesson.
    Chrissie passed away in January 2020.

    Comment


    • #3
      Ouch, that would indeed be an awkward conversation. It's good they thought to let you double-check it, though. They obviously have faith in your ability to find such errors.
      Eighteen -- Hadleigh, Suffolk; Reading, Berkshire
      Hendry -- Ballymena, Antrim; Glasgow, Lanarkshire
      Wylie -- Ballymena, Antrim; Glasgow, Lanarkshire

      Comment


      • #4
        Antony

        I've just this minute posted something very similar on another thread aboiut the need to prove things yourself.

        In my own defence, lol, I started my own researches long before computers were on the scene and I made several spectacular mistakes on the tree I drew up then, simply because I believed each "fact" as I found it. It was so difficult back then. I easily found my father's grandmother and using the information he remembered her telling him about her family background, I traced her family back 250 years which cost me a lot of time and money in those days - took me something like two solid years of a few hours here and a few hours there in various records offices.

        When I got a computer in 2000 I started to put my tree online and took the opportunity to check it against resources now available and to my absolute horror I discovered that she was his STEP grandmother, a second wife and was no blood relation to my father at all. I had picked up the wrong marriage and as comparative records weren't available (we are so lucky now!)I hadn't thought to look any further.

        I have another branch which was wrong because there had been a complicated name change which took years to unravel and was only possible to do on the computer.

        My mantra now is "three pieces of evidence". Even that doesn't always work!

        I wish you luck in telling your friend. Better now than later though.

        OC

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        • #5
          Originally posted by Olde Crone Holden View Post
          I wish you luck in telling your friend. Better now than later though.

          OC
          It's the type of mistake we all make at some point, we get caught up in the excitement of racing back through the generations and don't take the time to check things properly as we should, partly because these days Ancestry and FMP make it so easy to fall into the trap. I certainly did something similar in my own tree years ago, which took me quite a while to unravel later on !

          I will be telling my friend about the issue, and doing some work on the correct family line to rescue the situation - she can then explain the problem to her researcher friend ( I won't be doing that !)
          Last edited by AntonyM; 21-08-15, 11:02.
          Retired professional researcher, and ex- deputy registrar, now based in Worcestershire. Happy to give any help or advice I can ( especially on matters of civil registration) - contact via PM or my website www.chalfontresearch.co.uk
          Follow me on Twittter @ChalfontR

          Comment


          • #6
            Oh dear, but I would have wanted to find the baptism (or at least the birth registration) to be sure of knowing HOW the boy came to be recorded as a grandson.
            We all know of cases where apparently there has been no birth registration (after it became mandatory) but in my experience, this has usually turned out to be that the "wrong" name has been searched for. In my granny's case, her Irish surname was mis-spelt; in the case of my friend's grandfather, his parents had never married and he was registered with the surname of his mother, although he was always known by the surname of the father.
            A bitter blow for the friend (and her friend too) but thank goodness you were asked to cast an eye over the project.

            Jay
            Janet in Yorkshire



            Genealogists never die - they just swap places in the family tree

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            • #7
              JAY

              My 2 x GGF was registered. I have his birth cert. He is on all census with his family, the fifth of ten children. All is as it should be. EXCEPT. When I finally looked for his baptism I couldn't find it. To cut a long story short, he was illegitimate and his aunt and uncle took him in, registered him as their own child and brought him up as their own. I should have smelled a rat earlier on because as the apparently eldest son he really should have inherited the farm but he didn't.

              OC

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by Olde Crone Holden View Post
                Antony

                In my own defence, lol, I started my own researches long before computers were on the scene and I made several spectacular mistakes on the tree I drew up then, simply because I believed each "fact" as I found it. It was so difficult back then.
                When I got a computer in 2000 I started to put my tree online and took the opportunity to check it against resources now available ....... comparative records weren't available (we are so lucky now!)I hadn't thought to look any further.

                I have another branch which was wrong because there had been a complicated name change which took years to unravel and was only possible to do on the computer.

                My mantra now is "three pieces of evidence". Even that doesn't always work!

                OC
                Most of us will have done something similar, OC - luckily my errors (or the ones I know about!) were for side branches. I assigned two children to the first wife of gt-gt gdma's brother, simply because I couldn't find his second marriage and presumed it would have been after death of first wife. Found out later he'd been a bigamist, marrying for the second time in a registry office, giving his marital status as bachelor. Neither of the first two children seem to have been baptised and actually belonged to the second wife - it would seem the first marriage must have very brief, with the wife returning to the home of her father, where she eventually died six years after her marriage.

                Jay
                Janet in Yorkshire



                Genealogists never die - they just swap places in the family tree

                Comment


                • #9
                  On my trees, all the connections I have confirmed have their surname, whilst those that I still have to double check have a fullstop at the end of the surname.
                  It makes it really easy for me to see what I have still to confirm
                  Avatar is my Gt Grandfather

                  Researching:
                  FRANKLIN (Harrow/Pinner 1700 to 1850); PURSGLOVE (ALL Southern counties of England); POOLE (Tetbury/Malmesbury and surrounding areas of Gloucestershire and Wiltshire (1650 to 1900); READ London/Suffolk

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                  • #10
                    Trevor

                    It is so much easier on a roll of wallpaper, lol.

                    Direct ancestors in red biro. Blood relatives in black biro. Everything unconfirmed in pencil.

                    OC

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      NEVER skip past a generation you are having a problem with and carry on researching based on an assumption or guess !
                      In general that's true. If you're going to take the risk, then you need to make very sure that all the risky part of the tree is clearly marked as such.

                      The 'specific' where you might get away with it - as I did - is where, having worked your way backward a bit, you come at it from another angle to see if it still works. My Gx2-grandmother, Ann(e) FOSTER was b 1806-11 Hampshire [1841] or 1805-06 [1849 D-cert]... not very informative. I played around with a plausible-looking baptism and looked for siblings, and then a marriage (preferably) before the earliest. That led me to the marriage of Thomas FOSTER and Elizabeth PAFOOT... Pafoot was a middle name for one of Anne's sons. I followed Elizabeth back a bit and found her siblings, including a younger brother, Charles, who had married but died childless. Elizabeth's father and brother had both left Wills. Charles had left something to his elder sister's daughter - and specified that daughter by name and named her husband and residence. That nailed it.

                      But you do have a tricky conversation coming up. Difficult to see any way around it, really. I hope you find the right words to minimise the pain!

                      Christine
                      Researching: BENNETT (Leics/Birmingham-ish) - incl. Leonard BENNETT in Detroit & Florida ; WARR/WOR, STRATFORD & GARDNER/GARNAR (Oxon); CHRISTMAS, RUSSELL, PAFOOT/PAFFORD (Hants); BIGWOOD, HAYLER/HAILOR (Sussex); LANCASTER (Beds, Berks, Wilts) - plus - COCKS (Spitalfields, Liverpool, Plymouth); RUSE/ROWSE, TREMEER, WADLIN(G)/WADLETON (Devonport, E Cornwall); GOULD (S Devon); CHAPMAN, HALL/HOLE, HORN (N Devon); BARRON, SCANTLEBURY (Mevagissey)...

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        4 trees on the go (paternal grand parents and maternal grand parents)
                        The franklins alone are on a tree, when printed, that is three sheets tall by about 25 foot wide!!

                        Originally posted by Olde Crone Holden View Post
                        Trevor

                        It is so much easier on a roll of wallpaper, lol.

                        Direct ancestors in red biro. Blood relatives in black biro. Everything unconfirmed in pencil.

                        OC
                        Avatar is my Gt Grandfather

                        Researching:
                        FRANKLIN (Harrow/Pinner 1700 to 1850); PURSGLOVE (ALL Southern counties of England); POOLE (Tetbury/Malmesbury and surrounding areas of Gloucestershire and Wiltshire (1650 to 1900); READ London/Suffolk

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          oh dear.. hope it goes well Antony
                          Julie
                          They're coming to take me away haha hee hee..........

                          .......I find dead people

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by AntonyM View Post
                            It's the type of mistake we all make at some point, we get caught up in the excitement of racing back through the generations and don't take the time to check things properly as we should, partly because these days Ancestry and FMP make it so easy to fall into the trap. I certainly did something similar in my own tree years ago, which took me quite a while to unravel later on !

                            I will be telling my friend about the issue, and doing some work on the correct family line to rescue the situation - she can then explain the problem to her researcher friend ( I won't be doing that !)
                            In a way, that is why I preferred the slow research from years ago, methodically looking through the big BMD books at the Family Records Centre in London and checking on the census on fiche or film, slowly but methodically and proving everything; I prefer by far doing it like that, one exciting find at a time, checking again, than racing back generations using online sources.
                            Joy

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              I was recently contacted by a gentleman who was researching a tree for a friend of his where we had a common ancestor we had been conversing for some time when he broached the subject of a marriage of 3xgt grandparents which I had and which he felt was incorrect. He approached it in such a way that I rechecked my facts/evidence and found them lacking. However the correct marriage was identified and that has lead to a whole new vista of research which I'm not equipped to deal with - Mexico, Prussia, Austria.
                              Bo

                              At present: Marshall, Smith, Harding, Whitford, Lane (in and around Winchcomb).

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