How do you tell someone they have got their tree wrong?

[derby girl]

Recently a friend proudly told me she didn't need to do family history as her uncle had done it all in the 50s and their family went right back to Canute - hmmm!  I doubt it - but am saying nothing.
Derby Girl

[Genetrix]

I hit a brick wall with my 5th great grandparents.  Couldn't find birth records for either so was absolutely thrilled to find them on someone else's tree.  Thrill didn't last long though when I saw that only two generations further back they had suddenly become Earls and Lords in Argyll. Believe it or not, the tree actually went right back to 176 BC in Egypt, passing all the Cleopatras and even Jesus Christ himself (through the Virgin Mary's family).  There were a couple of other trees which had copied the same information.  I sent a message to two of them asking how they had linked my ancestors to the nobility (just in case they were right, fingers crossed).  Needless to say, neither of them answered me so presumably its all hogwash. I did, however, (just for the fun of it) draw up a separate tree for my own information (not published) just in case..... (ha ha)

Patricia (my name does of course mean "of noble birth" - just kidding)

[msr]

Depends who they are.

A 'I hope you don't mind, but I think..............' can bring very different responses.

Some may thank you for the info and say they will look into it.

Others may want to collaborate in order to gain as much correct information as possible, which is great for both parties.

Then there's the type of person who will not alter their stance no matter how many bricks drop out of the wall onto their head. 

Myself, a 5th cousin and an unrelated person (who contacted me knowing I was having problems) are all having issue with someone who just will not listen to anything we have to say regarding wrong information she has put on her tree. 

This is info on 3 different families with whom the 'researcher' has no connection at all. 

[Simon G.]

I've had it quite a lot (mostly related to my one-name study) where other researchers have insisted that what they have is right, even when I know for a fact it's wrong.  One of the most amusing instances I had was where one person was claiming that one of their ancestors (George Twyman, if I remember correctly) was from a family in Margate.  This amused me as I recognised straight off the mistake and where they'd got it from...it was the mistake I had made myself in my first 6-months of researching, and had been copied directly from my tree on Rootsweb. 

[GrahamSimons]

I've been trying very hard to nail a relevant quotation, which goes something like "Nothing gives me more pleasure than being proved wrong" - from Einstein or another of the great physicists, might just have been Feynman.... If someone is unwilling to be proved wrong, their research is not based on fact but on supposition and hearsay.

Now a lot of genealogy does depend on inspired guesses and also on, in Newton's phrase, "standing on the shoulders of giants" - and transcriptions can be wrong too.

I've found these - the first and last ones, to my professional joy, from biologists:

"It is a good morning exercise for a research scientist to discard a pet hypothesis every day before breakfast. It keeps him young."   - Konrad Lorenz

   "...By far the most usual way of handling phenomena so novel that they would make for a serious rearrangement of our preconceptions is to ignore them altogether, or to abuse those who bear witness for them." - William James

"It is a puzzling thing. The truth knocks on the door and you say, 'Go away, I'm looking for the truth.' and so it goes away. Puzzling."    - R. Pirsig

"Theories have four stages of acceptance: i) this is worthless nonsense; ii) this is an interesting, but perverse, point of view; iii) this is true, but quite unimportant;   iv) I always said so.   -J.B.S. Haldane

Enjoy the controversy!

[kiwistar]

Now i very much like that one.....how right youare...got told the other day when i added a couple of stories to a tree that i was completely wrong....fairly bluntly...i wrote back saying i didn't mean to of end anyone (they were by no means mean stories) no reply!!!!! maybe it was ecus i said that my mum actually new her grandfather well and he had told my mum...politely done though...it made me feel better to know that i actually was correct as i had the paper work in front of me as apparently my Great uncle wasn't awarded a certain medal in WW1 but hmm mum had it in her hand again win...inwardley smiling to myself thinking well there is a cousin that can be a very distant one!!!!!

Cheers
Sally

[GrahamSimons]

Found the quotation - not from a scientist as I thought, but a philosopher:

Why should you mind being wrong if someone can show you that you are?
   - A.J. Ayer