Ever have one of those days when

[sybylla]

after you've spent years thinking you were decended from a particular person and you've copied all the history you could find on them at the time from documented family histories into your genealogy workbooks and your family tree programs and you're so happy with yourself for finding it all as well as a fair amount of corroborative information and gosh life is great....

And then you come across research compiled by quite credible sources who say the connection between ancestor A and ancestor B is dodgy, specious, entirely made up of whole cloth or just plain unproven. :(

In my case, a family history organization has doubts about two of my ancestors in the Walcot/Wolcott/Wilcott family. One ancestral link they call unproven and unlikely - the ancestor, they suggest, is likely decended from the Devonshire line rather than the Shropshire line, as has long been thought, but then don't offer even the tiniest hypothesis as to whose name you might pencil in as ancestor B or whether or not further research is being conducted. Just erases that whole line from your family tree with one erudite word - unproven - which is a fancy way to imply it was merely an educated guess in the first place. I kind of figured when you get back to the 1500's it's mostly guesswork anyway, but they want more, damn them.

With the other, they say that the person who has long been thought to be the father of another Wolcott ancestor is probably not his father. Their names are connected in published family histories for 130 years. No one has doubted it until now. And that is all they say about him. He appears nowhere else on their website or in their histories on their website. There is no speculation on which Wolcott he may be descended from - only that through DNA research, it looks like he's connected to that same line somehow, just not through the man everyone thought.

Arg! This has really wrecked my week and taken all the steam out of my efforts to clean up and organize my genealogy files. Family is supposed to appear through research, not disappear!

<puts hand to forehead in melodramatic pose>
How will I ever go on?

[Gormy Cuss]

1. Oh yes.

Merrick/Myrick of New England. Every ten years I need to dump the line I thought was mine because of new credible research. I have decided my Merrick was dropped on Earth from Mars.

On the other hand, I recently proved out three 'theories' that my genealogically obsessed aunt has had for 20 or more years but was unable to corroborate. Her score: dead on with two, and in the ballpark on the third. She has resisted the internet age and I have used online resources from Europe that she could only dream about.

[fudge stripe cookays]

2. What a drag!

We had something sort of similar happen in our Gravlin branch, where for many years we thought we wre descended from the Joseph Gravelines that met up with Lewis and Clark on their expedition and played translator for them.

Same Gravelines family of course, but our line is off one of the other smaller branches, and is not quite as notable.

Sorry for your genealogical misfortune.

[Cooley Hurd]

3. Don't let it deter you from your search...

I've been lucky (since my guesstimates have been fortuitously correct), but I've spent considerable amounts of time on dead ends.:hug:

[sybylla]

6. I've decided to stick with what I have for the moment.

For me, old and credible family histories are closer to the events and I trust them as much as I trust a modern day family association who says "no evidence exists..." Sometimes the only evidence is testimony.

The family history association is doing DNA testing of various branches to see how they come together. Though I'm no luddite, I'm still rather skeptical that scientists know what they are doing with this, but I think I'll wait to erase lines 'til the DNA study is done.

The good thing that's coming from this is that I'm trying to corroborate one of the links on my own. Problem is, this ancestor was a loyalist during the revolution, was thrown in jail for supporting the crown, had his property confiscated and was likely disowned by family who remained in the US. So it's doubtful that anyone would admit to having him as a son/brother. But, I've found fresh sources in Vermont. Who knows what may come of it. Whether or not I can show the link, it's an interesting part of my family history to study.

[Rhiannon12866]

4. I'm sorry, too...

And you've done a lot of valuable research, so I feel your frustration. But consider yourself lucky that you have these files to consider. I've been very fortunate with one half of my family, since my grandmother's is pretty much documented in a published book and my grandfather's came from Ireland, and I know exactly where. But for the other side, my mother's family, I know virtually nothing. And it's far too late to ask anyone...:-(

[sybylla]

5. I sympathize, Rhiannon

It took my grandfather dying at 62 for me to realize that there was no time like the present to get started on genealogy. It made me realize those sage relatives who have tales about everyone won't be here forever.

I've been fortunate that I started young enough to have a load of valuable help from my elders. I have some lines that end in 1880 in Europe that I have yet to pursue, but my family have given me good leads. I've been able to follow the many branches of French Canadian ancestry that flow from my grandfather back to the early 1500's simply because the Catholics kept great records. And I had one line that seemed a dead end for over a decade, until one day in the library, I just happened to look at a shelf with passenger list indexes and found a new one I'd never looked at before, the one containing my family.

I am the sum of all my ancestors and I certainly do consider myself lucky when I get a chance to meet a new relative. But that makes it all the more disappointing when I am told these people I've come to consider my family really aren't my family.

Good luck on your search for your elusive family.

[Rhiannon12866]

7. Thank you. I'm afraid I really missed the boat on so much.

My paternal grandfather died at 48, so I obviously never knew him. My Dad was only 12. But his closest sister lived until 1990, died at 97, and I could have asked her much more than I did.:-(

And I have that great book on my paternal grandmother's family, though it was published in 1972, so I made it in there, while my younger cousins did not. But I've poured over previous generations. There is so much there... And I was very close to my grandmother, and she told me a lot, before I even knew that I'd want to know it...:D

As for my mother's family, they came from Poland. I have a total dead end with them, but I never looked at them as seriously, since I know so few from that side of my family. Maybe that's where I should start, though I'm not sure where. They came through Ellis Island as kids, and I obtained that info., but anything else is back in "the old country." But this is my mother's first language, so I could ask for her help.:shrug:

And I'm so sorry that some among those you've found aren't really your family. Though some of us should be so lucky... (just kidding). On my Irish side, I have more relatives than I can count, but they're all really nice folks, and glad to include me, so I consider myself lucky to know any of them.:-)

Thanks...
Rhiannon:hi:

[dragonlady]

8. Yes, I lost many generations

when I discovered my great-great grandfather had a first wife who was the mother of his first few children, including my great-grandmother. The true one was just "Eliza, born in Ireland" and I haven't a clue where she came from or what her maiden name was. Maybe never will. But we have to keep on looking, don't we?

[sybylla]

9. Oooo, there's a needle in a haystack

Eliza, born in Ireland. That's about as bad as my husband's g-g-grandmother Louisa Jones, from New York. Sometimes a last name isn't any help.

I've had some success finding a few needles. Perseverance will pay off, I'm certain.

[fudge stripe cookays]

10. Hey....if Juliana Smith

can look for her Irishman in New York, it can be done! I can't remember his name-- Patrick Murphy or James Murphy or somesuch. She talks about him in her column all the time.

But it seems she's been having more luck lately. That would definitely take some perseverance!

[Cybergata]

11. Many, many times!

Even worse, I find that everything says a certain person is the descendant of a line, read everything on this, research the line and put all the information on my web page. Later I run into that one source that totally disproves the connection. I delete all the work because I want to have my research be as correct as possible, then I find another, link that has been totally documented in another line to the very person and their ancestors so I have to do all the research all over again. I have learned to save all the work in an independent .ged file that I need to delete, just in case.