Telling people about errors in their tree?

[IgorStrav]

I absolutely welcome people telling me if I've got things wrong on my tree (and that has happened more than once) - here's looking at you, Top-of-the-Hill    - amongst other helpful people.

I only had one experience of someone denying some well-researched information that I and another RChatter had painfully accumulated, and we very soon decided that he could be deluded all on his own without our needing to be involved.

[Drayke]

I welcome people telling me my research is wrong, so long as they back it up. Its all part of genealogy, collaboration. The tree evolves when new info is found even if it means admitting it was wrong. That said, I've given up telling other people about errors in their tree unless they link a photo I have uploaded to the incorrect person. Too many people to tell that their tree is wrong.

Have too many instances where, you research an entire line for a couple of centuries, backed up with sound sources, only for 20 out of 27 Ancestry trees of the same family to copy snippets of your research and match it to the incorrect people in their trees (with no sources apart from the generic Ancestry Tree source) to make it fit their story. Just way to many people to correct.

[Mart 'n' Al]

A lot of time can be wasted if you ignore advice.

Martin

[Flemming]

Personally, I would love for someone to take enough interest in my tree to make contact about it, regardless of the reason, but it never happens. It's always me asking the dumb questions then realising the answer is equally as dumb because there's an error in the tree. I try my hardest to be as gentle and as round-about as possible but no-one has ever asked for more info or changed their tree and the exchange grinds to a halt.

There's been a few like this with DNA matches who say they've been working on a tree for x years and can't get it further back than a certain time. It may be a new pair of eyes on it but there's one or two where the wrong wife's been attributed to the husband (evidenced by father's name on marriages lines, etc.) which, in their shoes, I'd be delighted to have pointed out to me. But, no. Shutters come down and that's me on a permanent naughty step.

I think one of the issues is where you're dealing with someone who's a grandchild of the 'error', when you're about 5 cousins 15 times removed. They feel they own the person more than you do and that you don't have a right to interfere.

[coombs]

Not just 2 people of the same name leading to you climbing an "error" tree but 2 parishes in the county of the same name such as 2 Cloptons in Suffolk, and 2 Bishopstones in Wiltshire, have lead to confusion in Anc trees.

[Flemming]

Not just 2 people of the same name leading to you climbing an "error" tree but 2 parishes in the county of the same name such as 2 Cloptons in Suffolk, and 2 Bishopstones in Wiltshire, have lead to confusion in Anc trees.

In which case, you'd just be offering factual clarification on a location, not casting aspersions on the tree owner's family members, and should be less sensitive, but it still doesn't seem to matter from my own experience.

[ThrelfallYorky]

I've offered corrections to others several times, and been given them a few times, too.
Most of the people I've contacted have seen it as help, and a few have gone on to help me in turn, with areas of FH in our past that I knew less about.
The corrections I've been offered have some been correct, one not at all, largely as the person concerned was way out on most info except the surname, and seemed to be under the impression that "my" info was wrong, without being able to explain why, or give sources - and as the person under discussion from my end was very well known to me, right up to his death, and well-documented, I'm afraid I didn't fret too much. thanked her and declined to go further.
It all depends, doesn't it? I'll continue to hope corrections offered to me are helpful, until they're proved other, and continue to offer information in the hope that it will be acceptable and helpful to others, but I won't worry much about it either way.

[Ayashi]

Not just 2 people of the same name leading to you climbing an "error" tree but 2 parishes in the county of the same name such as 2 Cloptons in Suffolk, and 2 Bishopstones in Wiltshire, have lead to confusion in Anc trees.

In which case, you'd just be offering factual clarification on a location, not casting aspersions on the tree owner's family members, and should be less sensitive, but it still doesn't seem to matter from my own experience.

I suspect the only ways you might notice the error is if you find two different John x Mary marriages for the "same" place, or other information is added (perhaps on an original image and not a transcription) such as two different father occupations, or if you end up with two children born an impossibly close time period together. That said, I do have two areas of my tree where I believe the birth date of one child was recorded the wrong year (she was born the previous year not the same year) and another where the children are only 8 months apart. In the first case it is definitely the same couple (other information is thorough) and as for the other I'm reasonably certain despite this.

On the other hand, I do have one person who apparently had three different occupations. I've never been comfortable with him but I can only find one birth, one marriage and one death!

[coombs]

Two parishes of the same name, or who have the same word as part of their name in a county can lead to errors regarding names, not just locations. Eaton Hastings in Berkshire has a Sellwood family there, as does Appleton with Eaton in Berkshire. Eaton Hastings is often known as just Eaton. Some Anc trees has the Eaton Hastings Sellwoods as being from Eaton near Aplleton.

I found out today that my ancestors married in West Compton, near Swyre in Dorset, not Compton Abbas near Blandford Forum, a good 20 miles north.