One Great Big Silly World Tree

[Olde Crone Holden]

Sorry, I have to vent.

Someone has a personal tree on Ancestry. It is very well researched, quoting certs etc.

Some silly clown has used the info to hitch onto the One World Tree, but has managed to turn a death in St Annes on Sea, Lancashire, into a death in St Annes, Ontario, Canada, and has a six year old mother giving birth. Don't they ever wonder if this might be a bit far-fetched, when they are typing it out?

What is worse, they have quoted the nice tree as their source, making the nice tree's owner look like an idiot, instead of themselves.

OC

[Meridian Line]

OC,

I'm adding my moan to yours....someone has transported my Dalzells from Stockhow Hall in Cumbria to Georgia USA, and there is a son born 140 ( yes, one hundred and forty ) years AFTER his supposed father died.

I was a bit cheeky & left a note, but if they can't be bothered to check the tree, I don't suppose they'll read my note.

[Mary from Italy]

I suspect there's some kind of automatic phrase completion thing on Ancestry when you input place names, because I've noticed that on an otherwise sensible tree by a contact of mine, Beckenham, Kent is shown in the USA rather than England.

[vikki brace]

I just wish people would research properly (I know not everyone is like this)

For example there are a few Titchmarsh tress on ancestry, at a guess 85% are copies of one tree. No attempt has been made by the submitters to varify the information.

When I make new contact people offer to send me their tree which goes back to 1650!!!! I now politely decline, I have researched my line back to the late 1700's and I have the certs/PR/Wills etc to back up my findings. If I ever get to Cambridgeshire I can get back further but until then i'd rather have a small factual tree then a huge inacurate one.

Now I feel better, thanks for starting this thread

[Olde Crone Holden]

Mary

I was thinking along similar lines....after all, St Anne's on Sea SOUNDS like

St Annes On C

which the computer might pick up as St Annes, Ont. Canada, lol!

However, that still doesn't excuse the six year old mother giving birth.

OC

[vikki brace]

ancestry tree's do have a sort of predictive typing. it remembers what you have previously entered

so if you enter Sydenham, London, England for one record and Sydenham, Ohio, USA for another and the Start typing Syd for a 3rd it will give you the choice of the 2 previous or you can enter another. So it is sometime the case where the submitter hasn't read what they have entered

(BTW, I don't think there is a Sydenham in Ohio, it was the first US state that poped into my head)

[Olde Crone Holden]

Vikki

You are right, why do people just blindly copy without thought or verification?

The original researcher of the tree has made one small mistake. I guess, by the detail she gives, that she has a lot of "family knowledge" input. She has a child born 1884, and quotes his birth cert. Fine.

However, she hasn't thought to look for a death and hasnt realised that this family had THREE goes at a Joseph, two dying and the third born in 1892. As I say, I suspect she has family knowledge and someone has said "And there was a boy called Joseph" which she has found, and the family informant either didnt know, or forgot to mention, that the two earlier ones had died.

That's fair enough - but everyone has blindly copied her info. I looked at the 1901 census and immediately realised what had happened, checked for births and deaths and worked it out. Took about ten minutes.

I also found the "missing" person that no one else can find. He was in Cheshire, not Lancashire, and wasn't really all that hard to find - right name, right yob, right bp and a suitable job. Confirmation of this being the right man, is that his widow was living with her BIL in the next census. Haven't any other researchers wondered who this widowed sister in law was?

OC

[Michael]

I've had quite a few instances on Ancestry of someone on another tree who's quite clearly the same as mine, except that the incredible helpful Ancestry autocomplete thingie gives the place of birth as X, USA instead of X, England.

OC, believe it or not there is a fully substantiated case of a five year old mother, although the probability of her appearing on a particular person's tree is still fairly remote.

snopes.com: Youngest Mother

[Olde Crone Holden]

Michael


EUUURRGGGHHH.

OC

[Jeanie with one n.]

Re ancestry,
I put in a relative born Chester. I did not put in England. Whilst searching for another on ancestry I saw the first one had been recorded on my tree as Chester USA.
I have no one from the USA on my tree so it just assumes that that is where everyone is from if not otherwise stated.
Jeanie

[Grampa Jim]

That is really scary.

[Mary from Italy]

Just found another of these cases - one of my Chandlers from Kent is listed on Ancestry as being born in Beckenham, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

What's worse, Tribal Pages now seems to have introduced a similar system - I noticed last time I was on that you have to specify a default country, and if you don't specify a country name for an event, it'll be assumed to take place in the default country.

Their system had automatically set my default country to Italy (I don't have a single Italian person in my tree).

I have roughly half my tree in England and half in Australia, so I had no idea which to set as the default. What a silly system.

[Little Nell]

Beckenham, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Reminds me of the Monty Python sketch, introducing someone all the way from "Reigate in Mozambique"!

[Vicky the Viking]

prompted by this thread, I thought I'd see if there was anything of interest to me on One World tree... all I can say is, its great for wasting time :(

I have come to the conclusion it can't be very clever at merging data into its big dustbin. If OC has the youngest mum at 6 years old, I must have found the oldest. She married in 1632 & had a son born in 1835, so I guess she must have been about 220 at the time

I did find a rather well-researched tree for the same line though, quoting sources. Unforunately the chap who did most of the research died in 2006.

[Olde Crone Holden]

Vicky

That's the sad bit - SOME of the bits are very well researched. How gutting to have careful research tacked onto the rest of that dross.

OC

[yummy-mummy-amy]

i do think Ancestry has some sort of problem with places as i have changed my parents death 3times now from Peterborough ontario Canada, BACK to Peterborough, Cambs, UK. i know they didnt die in canada - i was present with both on UK shores!

so on that line it's not me NOT bothering to check what i haveput into my tree.