substantiating an ancestor

[flaggysmob]

Hi
On Ancestry there is a tree for my Family ( Flagg ) that goes back to the 1100  .
I have been able to get the tree back to a William Flagg b.1741 But can't find that next step back in time.
William married in 1763 in Somerset would the parish records from this time show the father's name? The marriage is on family search beta site with a source film number  it is also on find my past but no fathers names are mentioned
I have emailed the tree owner several times but have had no response  ( and how frustrating is that !!! a public tree for people to look at and discover distant cousins and they don't reply ).
I would love to belive we could get the family name back to the 1100 but without the proof am not going to copy someone Else's tree
Any advice on getting futher back would be a great help 
Many Thanks
Ian

[Plummiegirl]

You have another problem in that you have no proof that they have actually done any proper research to verify their ancestors back to 1100.  And until such time that they might reply (and they may never do so!)there is little you can do.   

Personally I have had very little success with contacting people via Ancestry and those I have have only proved in most cases to have incorrect data.  In one instance they had my g/grandfather & father in their tree and I know for certain that my dad was an only child and his mother only had 1 sister, but this person had found my g.grandfather & his wife (right names sort of) but my g/grandfather had a very unusual middle name (as did my dad) so I was able to prove their "claim" to my ancestors incorrect.

[Jeuel]

You need to rely on what you find yourself most of the time.  I have had some useful contacts via trees on Ancestry but mainly people have found out what I've found out because we've only had access to the same sources.

I did recently get into a chat with someone on Ancestry who had the wrong maiden name and birthplace for a wife, which he'd got from the IGI.  Once the digitised images of the relevant Norfolk registers came online via www.familysearch.org I was able to verify the right name as the maiden name is given on the marriage and on the baptism and burial of their first child.  But people who just take info from the IGI without checking will continue to repeat the errors.

I understand that parish registers were only kept properly from Tudor times.  I can't imagine many documents from 1100 would survive and be readable, but you never know!

[LizzieW]

Apparently parts of my tree, if you can believe information put on the internet by an American, go right back, via lots of Kings, Queens, Lords etc. to 900AD in Norway and 395AD in Cologne, Germany and probably elsewhere but I got fed up looking at it.  Do I believe it, no.

Of course, we're all descended from someone way back but how convenient that the  ancestors of people who sailed to USA in 1500/1600s only seem to have been landed gentry and royalty and these just happen to link into lots of ordinary families. 

Lizzie

[flaggysmob]

Hi
thank you all for your replies I know how frustrating it is this one tree on ancestry has my father on it going back correctly to our William and Grace then it goes on into the distant past and she wont reply to emails to say what sources she has used. I all ways try to reply to any email or message even if its to say sorry no common ancestor if they don't want people to get in touch why do they make their trees public
Ian

[LizzieW]

There's a tree on Ancestry that must be fairly new and it has my grandparents and aunts and uncles and my great grandparents on it (and no-one else!).  I've e-mailed the person who has put it up asking what the connection is (I don't recognize his name at all) and he hasn't replied.  I think many of these trees have no connection to the people who put them up, they are just name collectors.

Lizzie

[coombs]

I only have had one or two contacts on Ancestry via my tree.

[Gardener]

William married in 1763 in Somerset would the parish records from this time show the father's name? The marriage is on family search beta site with a source film number  it is also on find my past but no fathers names are mentioned

Hi
I would not expect a marriage entry from that time to include the father's name. The ones which I have looked at usually just have the names of witnesses, who may or may not be relatives.
It does vary a bit. Some times a witness's name will help. It may also help if a person is said to be of a paticular parish - though that will point to residence and not birthplace.
The older the records then the harder it is unless you have a family bible or something similar and tehre are not so many of those around 
Have you looked for a will? Wills can often help sort out family lines, especially those of maiden-aunts who left everything to umpteen nieces and nephews and named them all!

[Just Kia]

if they don't want people to get in touch why do they make their trees public

Because they do not know how to make their tree private - or they didn't realise it would be public in the first place.
As for no replies...
Maybe they don't check that email address anymore, maybe they didn't get the notification because it went in the spam, maybe they just don't get notifications - Anc doesn't always send me a notification of new messages.
Maybe the person hasn't logged in in a long time, isn't interested in family history for now/anymore.
Lots and lots of reason beyond those few.