Ancestry family trees full of lazy errors

[sparrett]

Although I don't have my tree on Ancestry, there are other trees about my families.

I contacted one tree owner through the message system and shared some accurate and well researched informatiion, my own verified work, which corrected a good many errors in theirs.

The reply actually made me burst out laughing!

" Well", they said," Thanks, but that's not what Grandma told us, so it's wrong "
 

I just let it go.
Who can argue with that brilliant style of research?

Sue

[Steve3180]

One thing the modern world teaches us is that people will believe what they want to, in the face of logic, reason, evidence and proof, particularly if said in a loud enough voice by a populist with pseudo authority. Whatever they started out as, Ancestry has become that populist that many people believe absolutely for family history.

We just have to accept that and continue to struggle to separate the grains of wheat from the tons of chaff, and also to continue to hope, without expectation, that reason will return, both to family history and the world.

That's my thought for the day this Epiphany Eve.

[Andrew Tarr]

One thing the modern world teaches us is that people will believe what they want to, in the face of logic, reason, evidence and proof, ... 

I am a long-retired research scientist.  I learnt to regard all 'results', not with scepticism, but on the basis that it is not necessarily certain.  I have worked alongside some others who have developed a theory and done experiments intended to prove it.  We all hear of some in more public life who think that way.

There are so many ways for the information that we are 'certain of' to be incorrect.  Tales handed down can suffer 'Chinese whispers', especially if they date from one's own childhood (I have one or two like that).  My mother-in-law invented some tales to avoid telling her children unpalatable things, as recent meetings with relatives have revealed.  Facts recorded on birth or marriage certs or censuses are often distorted or just plain wrong (for instance one of my great-uncles (aged 21) was allegedly born in Jamaica while his twin sister was born in Anglesey - I have her original birth cert).  I think death certs may be more reliable  .  At bottom I think we must assume that nearly all our records could be wrong, and we have to keep open minds.  Our aim is to build trees which are as internally consistent as possible - inconsistencies are there to be investigated !

[Marmalady]

I often look at Ancestry trees when stuck -- some have some reasonable possibilities that I always check out thoroughly before adding extra people to my own tree.
Others I disregard due to anomalies in time, place etc.
One particular tree that I recently looked at just made me laugh in disbelief. The compiler could not have actually looked at the info they had added.
They had an extra wife for the person I was researching.
This poor woman had apparently given birth to over 20 children over a period of 100 years, the first birth being 50 years before she herself was born !!!

[BushInn1746]

Not sure why you are blaming Ancestry, FindMyPast or any other site offering such facilities - they are NOT responsible for whatever nonsense some people wish to upload or broadcast.

MOTTO - do your own research.     

Yes, you can't beat D.I.Y.

Also, one thing leads to another (if you have an enquiring mind) and you find lots of additional information, that often nobody else found out.

Grandma dropped surnames etc., but some have been found to be relatives in the wider family through marriages.

Now, I have researched a wider 19th Century Tree, I can see where Robinson and Stephenson fit. Regarding Morley, only two Morley witnesses at an 18th Century marriage so far, so unresolved.

But I am not really directly descended from any of them, they were in my wider family.

[SplanK]

I long gave up trying to help others where tress are wildly incorrect.  I often find that these tree's are people just following hints and not reading much into censuses and either never respond or never update.

There was one tree with a DNA match to my wife where they made the wrong turn at their great grandparents resulting in Thrulines being completely wrong and impossible!  That was very annoying as it was several generations deep before we clocked that we could not replicate their information as we worked our way down!  Tried to help unpick it with them but they just threw up walls because they could not possibly be wrong!

I just concentrate on my own tree and use others as a guide and help in other ways where I can (IE I contribute a lot of photos and transcriptions on find a grave, or upload details from BMD certificates onto FreeBMD as postems's). 

My tree is hidden.  I have been in 2 minds over the years if I should leave it closed, or if I should open it up to aid collaboration.... but dare say most will just 'copy/paste' stuff into their own tree without much thought leading to new problems.  My other thought was to export the tree and upload it as a tree without the evidence/documentation, but not sure if that would be much help and means I need to keep repeating the steps frequently!  Also it would be difficult for somebody yo understand the reason my tree on one branch suddenly changes from Harding to Dourass where the basis information is missing and the clues are within DNA and a couple of newspaper articles! 

[Ray T]

Have I really been following this thread for three and a half years?!

In my experience, some people simply accept what they like to believe and ignore the truth. I have a prime example of this.

My G.Aunt emigrated from the UK to the USA and became the third wife of a man from the same UK town. By that time, he was practising as a doctor although prior to leaving England he had worked as a hatter and a herbalist. i.e. he was a complete charlatan. One of his descendants (a current researcher) has posted a copy of his “obituary”, which is completely fictitious, but refuses to accept this despite my having produced documentary evidence in support.

In view of this, I decided to publish a tree outlining his “real” life prior to the US clearly requesting that anyone finding fault with it should let me know. In the several years since, many bits of the tree have been copied but nobody has come forward to dispute any of it.

[Biggles50]

I gave up trying to help people correct their inaccurate Family Trees when I sent a message to a 2C2R DNA match nicely pointing her to our version of the Family Tree and explaining that my Grandmother had told me all about her parents who are our mutual MRCA pair.

Her tree was wildly inaccurate and she had gone back hundreds of years on the wrong family line.

6 years later I am still waiting for a Thank You.

Why bother !

[Erato]

"One of his descendants (a current researcher) has posted a copy of his “obituary”, which is completely fictitious"

The life story told in his obituary might be fiction, but it is a fact that it was published.  It was an obituary, not an "obituary."  That tells you a lot about how he (or the family member who supplied the information) wished to portray his life and perhaps how he was perceived in his community.  The lies and exaggerations people told are part of the story.