Skip to main content

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 You get told ' your URL may be out of date' or 'this page seems to be missing'.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!


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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...
1 comment
Read more

2026 Week 2: A record which adds colour #52Ancestorsin52Weeks

My husband's paternal grandmother, Janina Ciupka, was born in 1902 in a small town, Nieszawa, north of Warsaw, Poland, on the banks of the River Vistula. She was the youngest of 12 children, only 8 of whom survived to adulthood. At this time Poland had been occupied by their three neighbours, Germany, Russia and Austria and Warsaw was under Russian control.  Her family were very wealthy, owning granaries, bakeries, brick factories and carriage factories and they also bred white horses for the Russian Tzars. As with her elder siblings, Janina was taught by a private governess and the family had many servants, including cooks and cleaners. She obviously was leading a very privileged life. There was little known about the  period of her life from about 1909-1919, The family had moved south eastwards to Haczow around 1909. The reasons for the move seems to have been a combination of business and politics, as Haczow was under Austrian rule, considered more liberal than that of the ...
Post a Comment
Read more

2026 Week 1: An ancestor I admire #52Ancestorsin52weeks

 My mum, Helen Young Anderson was born on the 27th of June 1915, the second eldest daughter of John Anderson and Margaret Keir Adams. Her father John had originally worked as a tinsmith and was a steelworker at the time of my mum's birth, an occupation that had exempted him from serving in WW1. John and Margaret had only married four months before my mum was born and their ceremony, conducted at Hope Street Registry Office in Glasgow was an 'irregular marriage', one not conducted by a church minister (and therefore not approved by the Church) but one the Church accepted as alternative to a couple 'living in sin'. The reason for this probably being that Margaret was already pregnant with my mum and had already had another child by John, my aunt Meg, who by this time was six years old, being brought up by Margaret's parents, my great grandparents, James Adams and Margaret Keir. John and Margaret went on to have three more children over the next eight years - Anne,...
2 comments
Read more