Start again!

[suttontrust]

I bet I'm not the first.  I could establish who my grandparents on my mother's side were with complete confidence - John Richards b. 1871 and Isabella Webb b.1875.  But getting further back was distinctly iffy in both cases.  I settled for a best guess for each and pursued those, always prepared to say it was by no means certain.  In Isabella's case I've found loads of "relatives" and no one has contradicted me.  However, yesterday I decided to pursue the one thing I hadn't bothered with - the death of her first husband and consequently where they were on the 1901 census.  Thanks to Rootschatters we found them - aarrgghh!  I've had the wrong Isabella all this time.  So today (I have been working, honest) it's been BMD, census look-ups (thanks a million, folks) and I'm off home to reconstruct the tree.  I have to tell my brother and his children that they can junk the trees and book I did for them - new versions to come.
Tell me I'm not the only one. 

[Nadine Moore]

Suttontrust

How frustrating that must be for you.

I have not done this yet (to my knowledge) but I wish you well with your new searches.

dinie

[MarieC]

I've done it with rellies, not direct ancestors, suttontrust!!  Spent quite a while pursuing the wrong William Lockwood Martin as my gguncle!!  Although, come to think of it, someone's website led me astray for a little while about who was WLM's father.  But it wasn't a major detour.  It's made me very careful now.  Because of good family information which has been preserved on both sides of the family, and some careful research, I can be quite confident back to at least gggrandparents. 

Thank heavens for Scottish clannishness, I say!  The Scottish parts of my family have been extremely thoroughly researched and there is little to no doubt about any of it!  So I am concentrating on other lines.

Anyway, good luck with sorting yours out.  What a blow!!!!! 

MarieC

[jericho]

Hi Suttontrust

No I haven't done anything that bad that I know about, I don't envy you for having to redo your  tree, but at least now you can be confident that you have the right Isabella.


Good Hunting 


jericho

[julianb]

Tell me I'm not the only one.

Suttontrust

You're not the only one.  I inherited research from a cousin of my dad's, conducted in the pre-internet days, and have found holes in it.  The key mistake was assuming that children were born in wedlock!

Turn it round the other way - think of the achievement of actually getting to the bottom of the issue!

JULIAN

[Frances]

Hi Suttontrust,

Yes, I took my grandfather for granted, my grandparents lived with us from the time I was born until they died.

When I started this hobby so many years ago you will know that research was done by travelling to the FRC, offices etc. Money was tight so with the cost of fares alone without the certificates needed I left the ones I was, as I thought, sure about.

I traced his line back to the mid 1700's. A couple of years ago I decided to buy his birth certificate to go with the one for his marriage and could not find it It turned out that he was base born so all I had traced was the name of the person his mother later married!

At present the info is still on my tree but I suppose that I should remove it really

Frances

[chrissiepoos]

I did a search for a family friend on her Mum and Dad's family,I printed up everything and posted it to England and they were both wrong, once she gave me both her Grandfathers occupations I found the right families, there just happened to be two Anne Blaggs born the same year and and in the same county.  Also I have also gone down the wrong line on one of my families, but my Mum's cousin ordered a marriage certificate and it was all sorted out.

[CarolBurns]

You are not the only one sutton

When I first started I used the LDS site as that was the main thing going at the time. I had got back to hubby's great grandparents but could find no birth entry for either. I assumed that great grandad's (Hugh) father would be Peter as his eldest son was Peter James. So, as you do, I searched and found a Peter Burns married to an Agnes and went back from there. So easy I was laughing with each bit of info I got as well as each bit of paper I printed.

So much for all this searching that everyone talks about! Simple! Anyone can do it! Ha!!

I got all the way back to 1600's and printed out every link I found (including lines through marriage) I had a file for each generation and had got back about 15 generations. How good was I?

I printed a book each for the family members who were interested as well. One member scanned and printed the book out for her children as well so there were plenty of copies of this book flying around

Then about a year later I decided to send for some certs and sent for Grandad's birth as well as Hugh's marriage. Sat waiting for 7 days and then......................


................... I found the parents names for Hugh. Yes it was Peter and Agnes but Agnes was born on the other side of Scotland to the family I had found. There was no record of a marriage to Peter from the area I had thought originally was the family area. Then I found Scotlandspeople and went on and looked for the census. I found Agnes and Hugh in the "family area" but no Peter in 1871 though the 1st peter I found didn't die until a lot later. So I searched for the 1st Peter and found him with wife and children.

So I had the wrong family altogether - 14 generations worth!!!!!!!!

It took me all day to empty the files and sat crying while I shredded every piece! The worst part was telling everyone and I mean everyone that it was wrong.

Now I check, check and treble check every name I find until I cannot find any other proof that it could be a different family.

So I know how you feel

Carol

[D ap D]

no need to junk it Sutton.

Advertise it on Ebay - someone might be able to use it - it may well work out cheaper for them than hiring a researcher to do the work for them....

Alternatively, try and find some living relatives ( subject for a "rootschat challenge"?) and be generous by passing on your work to them.

I know how you feel, as I have "inherited" some research, and taken it back another few generations. I now think that my "inherited" info was wrong.....

D