Week 5: Oops! #52Ancestorsin52weeks

If Genealogy had a ‘Prime Directive’ it should be ‘Do not take other people’s information at face value.’ This is something that I'm sure everyone is guilty of at at some point.

What do I mean by other people’s information?

Well, family stories for starters. The ones that get ‘passed down’ with no real evidence to back them up. One that springs to mind is the notion that the Stepeks originated in Sweden. I think Martin’s sister once saw a portrait in Sweden of a man who bore a great resemblance to their father. That added to the story or may even have started it! Research has found that Swedes did settle in the area where the Stepeks lived in Poland, but not at the right time in history. DNA testing of family members has thrown up a small percentage of Scandinavian DNA – but that seems to be linked to the other side of the family. The lesson? Go where the research takes you – don’t go trying to find connections where they may not exist.

Copying information willy-nilly from other people’s trees is also a no-no. But it’s so easy to get excited and rush down a rabbit hole when you think you have found something new. Take a moment to look carefully – does this tree have the source of the information? Most don’t. Or most cite other people’s trees. Some are just careless, people having 'found' someone with the right name in the right place but where the dates are just obviously wrong. But remember no sources doesn't always mean the information is wrong. But check it out for yourself. If they found it somewhere, you should be able to as well. Only then should you add it to your tree, especially if it's one that is shared online.

Those ‘Hints’ and ‘Thrulines’ on Ancestry?? Again, check and verify.

One small ‘Oops’ can lead to a whole lot of wrong information in your tree. Or in my case a great frustration! My biggest OOPS has been in my source citations from Scotlands People. For years I have been adding the sources I have found on Scotlands People and adding a weblink to them, so that others can go look at them too. However, recently Scotlands People updated their site - and the weblinks no longer work. You get told ' your URL may be out of date' or 'this page seems to be missing'.

Well it's not missing, it can be found easily again but it is no longer there at a click of a mouse. And of course, it also affects all of the trees I have, which is really frustrating. Now I also download the record, which of course I could also have done in the first place. OOPS!

Comments

2024 Week 43: Lost contact #52Ancestorsin52Weeks

When we research our ancestors and their families, it is all to easy to become a collector of names, dates and places. After all, we want to 'know' who they were and where they lived and when, in order to get a glimpse into what their life was like. We look for photographs of our most recent ancestors to see what they looked like. We trawl censuses, Poor Law Applications, Wills and Testaments to get some detail about their rank in society, their jobs, their financial circumstances. We discover their families, the children they had, the children they lost. We may read their obituaries and gravestones and scan their death certificates for cause of death. Through research, we can slowly start to build up a picture of them, a notion that we know 'who they were'. But something will usually elude us - we will never truly know their feelings/emotions, even if we know the key moments in their lives. Take my grandmother, Christina, who lost her first four children and then anot...

2024 Week 19: Preserve #52Ancestorsin52Weeks

A few years ago, I came into the possession of a family bible. It was the family bible of my paternal grandparents, John McAra and Christina Walker. Until her death in 2018, the bible had been in the hands of my Aunt Inez, widow of my Uncle Will McAra. When I started enquiring as to its whereabouts, I found that it was her grandson, John, who now had it. John himself had no real interest in it at all, so he was quite happy to hand it over to me. However, it was, to say the least, in a bit of a state. The front cover was completely detached and there were many loose pages as the spine of the book was also damaged and detached. I had no choice but to take it to a book repairer in Glasgow, where it was repaired as best it could be. The bible itself had been originally published in Glasgow in the late 19th century. In Victorian times it was common for Christian families to have such a large bible in which they could record events such as births, marriages and deaths. The one I have al...

2025 Week 26 : Favourite name #52Ancestorsin52Weeks

As well as researching my own family, one of the other trees I have spent a lot of time on is that of my daughter-in-law, Lucy. Whereas my heritage is Scots and Irish, Lucy's is English and therefore some of the names I came across were quite different to those found in my own tree. One of my first favourites was a Francis Badger who appeared in the 1851 census for England! He wasn't actually a relative, but an apprentice to Lucy's 3 x great grandfather and who also lodged with the family. I did wonder how that surname came about - did the original Badger have a funnily shaped face? or perhaps a white streak through his hair?? Or was he just an annoying person?? I'll never know, but it was fun to find him! Francis Badger's entry at the bottom in the 1851 census for England. Source: Ancestry.co.uk However, my all time favourite name - and character - from Lucy's tree is a man named Golden Bridge ! He is Lucy's 5x great grandfather and he was born in Essex...

Roots, shoots and stories

Search This Blog