Start again!

[suttontrust]

I shan't throw anything away.  I've just been on GR, deleting, replacing, and emailing all my contacts on that line saying, sorry, delete it all.  I must say I don't feel much sympathy for the woman who took a huge chunk of my tree and grafted it onto her own, with very distant connections; then when I expressed concern, was surprised but said she would take them off - but hasn't.  Now she'll have to.

[Shaztoni]

Oh I did that once before with my Garrow's, the worst was emailing all those "cousins" and saying we were no more    I can sympathies Sutton.

Sharon

[jinks]

The nearest thing I have come to on this
is my Maternal Grandfathers Mother, I can not
find her baptism or birth I have a sneaky suspicion
her Parents could be her Grandparents.
The only register for someone of the same name
died (I have found the burial as a child) and I have
only found my Ancestor on the census with her
reported Grandmother but is it not Great-Grandmother! (Umh!) I suppose it is the correct
family but there may be a different generation.

Jinks

[Paul E]

then when I expressed concern, was surprised but said she would take them off - but hasn't.  Now she'll have to.

Hmm - somehow I don't think she'll bother, do you?  Some of those GR people seem to collect ancestors like bus numbers, and  aren't too concerned about accuracy. 

Maybe the phrase 'back to the drawing board' was coined by a genealogist? 

Thanks for sharing this, suttontrust - reminded me of all the blind alleys I've wandered down!

cheers

Paul

[MrsLizzy]

You definitely aren't the only one, Sutton Trust.  I conflated two of my ancestors, a father and son, resulting in one tireless French Huguenot who went through three wives and fathered at least 22 children.  And all I just thought he was a DOM!!  It took my cousin from Illinois, who's much more organised than I am, to point out my mistake.  I was lucky though - there are so many people researching the Noquets that everyone else had NOT conflated the two men (who were both called Abraham Noquet - you can see how it happened, can't you??)

[patrish]

This has happened to me also,  with the name Davis and Davies had the death certificate in the 1840's then found the family on the 81 census with the father very much alive and living with them, I had got the wrong family entirely.

[Simon G.]

Tell me I'm not the only one. 

You're certainly not the only one...I think most people have done this at some stage, and if they haven't they probably will.
I totally screwed up with my paternal grandfather's father (which given it's my own surname, really embarrased me at the time) when I was first doing it.  I didn't know at the time he went under his mother's maiden name until he joined the navy, since he was illegitimate...threw me right off when I was trying to find an Edward Golding, when he was really Edward Brigden at birth.

[patrish]

The oddest thing that happened to me was my Gt. Grandfather was born Emmanuel but on his marriage in 1882 he changed it to John I spent years looking for him and loads on wrong certificates. Still no one said this would be easy did they?

Patrish

[MarieC]

Patrish,

That's one of the well-known strategies that the ancestors use to throw us off the scent!!!      There are a number of these strategies, and I'm sure we all have ancestors who have used them!!

MarieC