Anyone frustrated by errors in online pedigrees?

[suigeneris]

In my family there is a lot of stuff online that I can demonstrate is erroneous but it floats around endlessly anyway. The lesson for me is that just because a lineage is published and available in several places, it's still worth a careful look to verify some sources.

And, of course, you get into those situations where there is only one error. A huge one where somebody made a wrong connection and everything before or after is good. It's just that the before stuff isn't your family!

[Cooley Hurd]

1. There was some sort of genealogical research firm from the...

...late 19th/early 20th century that basically made shit up about their clients' ancestry. I wish I could recall the whole story, though...

[Cooley Hurd]

3. I believe this is the story mentioned above:

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~tmark/GeneFraudsArticle.html

<snip>
Earlier this century about 200 fabricated genealogies were produced by Gustav Anjou, a Staten Island, N.Y. genealogist, who developed a profitable business in mail order ancestors. More than 100 genealogies compiled by Anjou have been located. They are widely accessible and probably being used by genealogists, who are not aware that the pedigrees are false.

According to Robert Charles Anderson, certified genealogist and a Fellow of the American Society of Genealogists, a typical Anjou pedigree displays four recognizable (to the more experienced researcher) features:

-A dazzling range of connections between dozens of immigrants (mostly to New England).
-Many wild geographical leaps, outside the normal range of migration patterns.
-An overwhelming number of citations to documents that actually exist, and actually include what Anjou says they include.
-Here and there an “invented” document, without citation, which appears to support the many connections.

Not only did Anjou falsify many genealogies, evidently he fabricated his own pedigree and credentials, according to Gordon L. Remington, Fellow of the Utah Genealogical Association and editor of Genealogical Journal, in an article that appeared in Volume 19, the combined issues of Nos. 1 and 2 of that periodical. In the same issue also appear an excellent article by Helen Hinchliff on estate frauds and one by Anderson on the Anjou pedigrees, identifying many of them by surname.
</snip>

[fudge stripe cookays]

2. YES!

In the 1930s, a granddaughter in my Smith line wrote an article for a Beloit newspaper about the descendants of Melchior Smith (10 children and their kids).

In it, she said that Melchior Smith was a "Hollander", his father having come from there in an early day. My aunts always told me the name was originally Schmidt. Which conflicts. Schmidt is GERMAN, not Dutch.

The only problem was, when I asked my aunt about this, she INSISTED it was Schmidt, not Smit or Smid, as I suggested it could have been. We knew that Melchior and his wife probably were married in Northampton County, Pennsylvania, then moved to Newfield, New York, so I figured I'd better start with Pennsylvania.

Recently, a cousin who was helping me research this line found an LDS film (that I still have to order) with Melchior's birth date and place, and his father is listed as Heinrich Schmidt. The guy was GERMAN.

We've come to the conclusion that this lady who wrote the artcle knew the family settled in Pennsylvania, and heard the term "Pennsylvania Dutch" being thrown around, and like many others, assumed Dutch meant "from Holland" instead of being a corruption of "Deutsch."

I still find records submitted to LDS that say Melchior was born in Holland. And it burns me up that no one checks before they submit this stuff.

FSC

[Welsh_Princess]

4. Some people

Get too excited too quickly when they find something cool, and so they add it to their family tree without verifying the information, which makes it more difficult for everybody else. Something important to remember is that just because there are a lot of people who have the same information doesn't mean that they are all right. They could all be based on the same erroneous information.

[Xipe Totec]

5. I use the On line as Leads, but confirm EVERYTHING

I get a lot of useful information on-line that narrows my search down to specific rolls of film. But then I order the rolls and do my own research to validate the information. Yes, there is a lot of bad stuff out there, but it definitely beats doing a blind search with no leads.

PS: When you're done, make sure to post your results; That will help counterbalance the bad information.

[woodsprite]

6. I found 2 generations of my Conaway/Mitchell line

on Ancestry.com One World Tree - Guarantee 100% know it is them. It listed everyone with the appropriate birth year, no months/days though, proper location, but it looked like everyone died in 1920. The only thing I could think is that 1920 was the last census they all appeared together as a family, so that's what the FHC used as a date. There was no "contact" info for someone who had submitted the tree, so I assume they were going from docs that they had found.

In OWT, you can fix the info and I have done that for that branch of the family using family records, Bibles, etc. I *DON'T* know if it only appears "fixed" to my account or if it looks OK to everyone else also.

I *KNOW* it's not true because if they'd all died out in 1920 - I wouldn't be here typing this!