Do your own research - get the BMD's

[Nick29]

GR is probably the worst site online for poor information and no sourcing.  It is also the one site online where people just copy your work hence why my tree thats on there as a couple of glowing errors and yes I have seen them appear in other people's trees as well

Rob

I'm so glad you entered this glorious hobby of ours in such a great spirit of sharing and co-operation 

With an attitude like that, why belong to it at all ?

[Barbara Eyre]

Thank you for everyone's review of the site ... something to look into. 

[billslad]

Lots of common sense posted on this subject but some postings have surprised me

First off is the subject of the discussion - "Get the BMDs". 

They are not infallible.  One of my great grandfathers was killed in a factory accident in 1887.  I found the report in a local paper giving the circumstances.  A report the following day gave details of the inquest.  According to the BMD Index, his death was never registered.  After several years of searching, I eventually found his death certificate made out in the wrong name.  The informant was the Coroner who carried out the inquest.

I also have the daughter of a great aunt born when she (the great aunt) was 16 years old.  There is no father's name on the birth certificate.  Fast forward to the daughter's marriage and a father's name appears on the certificate.  No trace of the "father" has been found after 20 years research.  Was this a case of the young lady avoiding the embarrassment of not knowing who her father was by simply inventing one ?

Like a previous poster, I have what appears to be a clear case of a child being baptised with the grandparents names being given instead of the (unmarried) parents.  Another case of avoiding embarrassment ?  As the child was born just before civil registration began, there is no way of checking.  If the circumstances are genuine, then the mother, who would have been 57 when the child was born, deserves a memtion in the Guinness Book of Records !

Which brings me to the statement that "GR is probably the worst site online".  I resent that.  I have a tree on GR and a lot of research and time has gone into it.  I make no claim to it being 100% accurate but none of it has been copied (willy-nilly or otherwise) without every effort being made to verify everything on there.  If some one has good reason to request access to my tree, I always point out the "weaker" points and always say "Feel free to contradict anything you're not happy with."

Before we lose sight of reality, no-one ever said that genealogy was an exact science.  My father used to say "Believe half of what you hear, and a quarter of what you read."  If anyone wants to build a tree that leads them straight back to, say, William the Conqueror, who are we to disillusion them ?

John

[MKG]

 

I've actually seen one of those. Plus Norman ancestors who were born in Tickhill Castle in 1052 - a good fifty years before the place was built.

Mike

[Gillg]

A relative of mine (met through GR) has her family tree back to the ancient kings of Scotland and England in the 6th century.  I agree with her findings as far as our shared gt-gt-gt-grandparents, because that's as far as I've managed to get with proofs, but beyond that I think she has a very fertile imagination. 

What makes me smile is that she has guessed at the birth years of me, my husband and our children.  Instead of using a simple check via the GRO index, she has added 25 years to my parents' birth years, which I gave her, and assumed that they married at that age (wrong), that my brother and I were born soon afterwards (wrong again - we took a long time coming), assumed that I married at 25 (wrong yet again) and that my children were born soon afterwards (like my parents, we had another long wait).  In consequence, she has me, my husband and our children in her online tree as about 20 years older than we are.  Despite the fact that I have have tried to correct her, these facts remain unchanged on her website.  If she gets living people wrong, what does that say about those kings?   

Gillg

[Sylviaann]

Billslad
It is quite common for illegitimate children to make up a father on their marriage certificates.  This is why you should get a birth cert.

Yes we know BMDs are not always correct.  People couldn't always spell and they lied.  I have one who says she was the wife of the father but they didn't marry until a few years late.  She is also on the census under her married name before they married.  It's what make searching so interesting

Sylviaann

[Pinetree]

Apologies if this point has been made before but your can't always trust certificates - I have at least two marriage certificates that bear the names of fictitious fathers presumably to avoid admitting to illegitimacy.

Pinetree

P.S. Sylviaann - I am sure your last post wasn't there when I started type this message 

[Normsy]

Hi
I love doing all the research and the 'digging'
That's part of the enjoyment for me!! 
Love Normsy

[billslad]

Sylviaann

I agree with what you say

The point that I was trying to make was that the topic heading "Get the BMD's" wasn't the complete, or even the only, answer

In the first example I mentioned, £14 for a birth certificate and a marriage certificate left me not-much-the-wiser

Spelling mistakes I can live with.  If my ancestors couldn't read or write, they obviousy couldn't correct what was written.  That's something for me to deal with.  My surname contains 8 characters and yet I can come up with 17 alternate spellings which all sound right when spoken

Anyone starting out on their research should get everything they can lay their hands on.  Start by keeping your grandma tied to the chair until she tells you everything she knows.  (This is not an incitement to grandma abuse)

Normsy

I second that.  There is always a potential "Eureka" moment

On and off, it took me about 4 years to find my wife's great grandfather on the 1871 Census.  I knew he was married and in the Royal Artillery, I knew his wife was living on her own and assumed he was possibly overseas.  That thought led to nothing.  As a last resort, I looked for any Henry (no surname) born c.1846 in Bedfordshire.  At number 176 on the list of possibles, there he was - Henry WARBER, living in barracks at Woolwich.  Only problem was - his real name was Henry HARBER.  That was a "Eureka" moment

In addition to the problems with my surname, I also seem to have married into a long line of transcription errors.

That's what makes it interesting

John