and now I've got an ancestor with two histories

[lazarus]

Very frustrating, and I don't know where to look for answers:

According to the traditional story, Martin Martin was born in 1678, the son of Thomas Martin, Sr. and the grandson of Nehemiah Martin. These Martins lived on the Isle of Skye, Scotland. The other version says Martin Martin was born in 1678 in New Kent Co., VA, the son of George, Jr. and Susannah West Martin. Story two says Martin’s grandfather was George Martin, Sr., from Bristol, England. (Actually I prefer the Scottish version, but DNA tests seem to favor the second story.) In addition to the “who’s your father?” question, if the second story is true, then Martin is not “The Immigrant”; his grandfather, George, Sr. who arrived in this country first can claim that honor. (George, Jr., like his son, Martin, was born in VA.) On the Isle of Skye there is a proverb, “Clan Mhartain, siol Shionnach,” which means, “The children of Martin a tribe of foxes.” In keeping with this saying, maybe the spirit of Martin Martin is hiding the secret of his ancestry until a clever descendant can figure it out.

Everybody on Ancestry is going with the Scottish version except the person who wrote this, who decided to just leave his ancestry blank. That's something I'm considering at this point.

I don't know where he got the DNA test info from. Is there anywhere I can look for that sort of thing?

To be honest, it would make my life easier, if not as interesting, if the English story was true, as the Scottish side has a couple of other issues I'm still trying to nail down.

Any help is much appreciated. I'm a rank amateur at this sort of thing.

[csziggy]

1. Search for the surname and "DNA project"

That will usually find groups that are doing the research for the families. I found this one: http://www.small-stuff.com/MARTIN/DNA/ but there are others.

Frankly, I am leery of the consensus trees on Ancestry. Genealogy facts are not affected by voting! I only use the trees on Ancestry to see who has what research and see if it fits the facts I already have. A very few times I have found useful information that way with the documentation to prove it - links to census, birth, marriage or death records I had not been able to find.

Far too often the only 'sources' for most of the information in Ancestry trees are other's trees posted there with absolutely no facts intruding into the created narrative. I've even found trees where they claim people's parents are fifty years younger than the child and one where his wife was claimed to be his mother. And these mistakes get perpetuated across Ancestry by people new to Ancestry that don't know to check.

So I applaud you for being cautious!

[lazarus]

2. yeah, I'm very cautious about Ancestry

from what I've gathered, talking to the tech people about issues I occasionally have with FTM, it all really started when they merged in the One World Tree, or whatever that is.

And people actually intentionally put bad data up. What kind of person would do that? I understand being sloppy, I guess, but to intentionally screw up other people takes a "special" kind of person.

I got lucky on a couple of my branches and tied into family work that was done by reputable genealogists in the UK or elsewhere, and even found some ancestors on Wikipedia!

I did find the DNA stuff. Someone very helpfully PM'd me with all the info I could ever want. Turns out the English lineage is the correct one, not the Scots ancestry Ancestry.com's trees wanted to go with.

[frogmarch]

3. I don't trust Ancestry at all.

Sometimes their data is accurate, but other times it's not. Same goes for other gen. research programs.

Also, it's a good idea to not trust personal genealogy websites. They copy bad data from each other.

I use official vital records documents whenever I can. A cousin of mine is an experienced gen. researcher who has taught me a lot. Lesson One he taught me was to never trust personal genealogy websites (always check the info for validity), and Lesson Two was to be cautious about info from Ancestry, My Heritage, and others like them.