Family tree is wrong

[silver12]

Hi
ive been doing my family tree a very long time got lots of births, deaths and marriage certificates. Ive recently hired a professional Genealogist to help with some research and on one line of family its totally wrong ive had to delete quite a lot of grandparents going back. As anyone else done this and is it that easy to go of track I'm gutted. I m better finding out now rather than later on

[aghadowey]

I'm not sure exactly what proof there was that you had incorrect details but 'professional' genealogists have been wrong more than a few times. To give just a few examples-
1) Australian friends were told there is no 1831 census for County Londonderry. Strangely enough, at the same time they got a letter from someone else here in Ireland with the details of the correct family in the 1831 census (which does survive for Co.Derry)
2) same Australian friends (different query) were sent details of 'their' ancestors (wrong location, religion, names and dates) when quite a few records show the correct family living exactly where they were supposed to be!
3) a professional genealogist from Belfast contacted me for information on a local family. I said there dates didn't match up and the family had 4 men with the same first name over just a few generations (the person they had selected would have been about 5 years old when their son was born). The response was 'it doesn't matter. It's for someone overseas and they'll never know.' By coincidence a few months later the overseas client contacted me without knowing their researcher had previously been in touch. I wrote back and explained the information was incorrect, etc. ... and never heard back from them again.

[Milliepede]

Yes I would make the same comment, are you positive that the information that was different to yours is correct. 

It’s very easy to go off down a wrong track especially with common names.

When I started researching I followed the wrong family for some time not realising there were other options for who I was looking for until it was tactfully pointed out by a kindly soul on here. 

[Jackiemh]

I picked up the wrong William early on in my research - very close birth dates, place and parents with the same names. It took me a while to sort the two families out but it did teach me to check everything wherever possible.
It helps to keep an open mind and not to grab the first option.
Jackie

[ptdrifter]

I would also double check that your research is incorrect. I had info from a professional military genealogist claiming he'd traced my grandfather under an assumed name. He hadn't followed up on the man he'd found via censuses and later military records etc. I did this and it showed he had the incorrect person.

[AntonyMMM]

The researcher should have supplied you with a proper report, with copies of the source material they used and explained why & how their findings differed from your own. If in England/Wales I would hope they were qualified/accredited through either AGRA or the RQG.

I did have a similar case though where I was asked to check a large amount of research, done very thoroughly with numerous sources, that went back to the early 1600s. Unfortunately the person had failed to find a birth registration in the 1880s, decided the child was never registered, and made an assumption ( based on census records) about the parentage of their ancestor and then followed the family back through multiple generations.

I found the "missing" registration and so could show that about seven generations of their research, done over many years, was on completely the wrong family line.  It happens !

[Annie65115]

Slightly different, but I invested a lot of time and energy (and GRO fees) into tracing my gt-grandfather's line. DNA then showed that he wasn't actually my ancestor so I had to start again with the true ancestor (who did actually bring my grandmother up, her mother's husband having done a runner).

But that's all part of the fun!

[coombs]

I guess it is easy done, we can get 2 people mixed up if they were of the same age, and had a lesser common name, but it does teach you to double check and do as much research as you can on both candidates and one day you may find out who is who, and there are always more than just 2 people.

Sometimes you will find they were cousins or 2nd cousins. I found a Liverpool passenger list for a 2nd cousin of my ancestor's brother Timothy Wallaker, and at first I thought it was my ancestor's brother, but further research made me realise there were 2 Timothy Wallaker's of the same age group. One born 1833 and one born 1834, about 10 miles apart. Their dads were cousins.