How do you check if a family tree is genuine?

[mgread1200 141]

Completely agree with post #15 its quite easy getting back to 1841 using the census records providing you have reached the 1911 census acurately, beyond that just church records and other oddments. If your family was in the same place for along time then the chuch records can get you back a fair way but I got no farther than about 1656. You are just number crunching though and finding out anything about the people that far back is very time consuming and sometimes fruitless.

[Smiffy49 590]

So basically I will be wasting my time, I'll go and mow the lawn (again).......

I suppose with the amount of modern recording keeping on every aspect of our individual lives it will be easy for future generations.

Now... where's that stamp album?

Hold on, I've just had another email from my distant relative....

Back later !!

Smiffy

[Rob.L 1,086]

Without wishing to generalise, the worst trees I've seen are generated in the USA and Canada. Quite often, they find a name, ignore the location or year of birth, and slap it into their tree because it fits.

When I was researching my Hill family line (maternal grandmother), most of them were in South Normanton and Pinxton, and all males were miners. As the families all lived on the same streets, and gave their children the same forenames, it was a nightmare to get the right child to the right parents. Took a good year or so to work out.

[mgread1200 141]

I didn't mean to infer that you would be wasting your time the info you get from the census records is quite interesting and using that info i.e birth place to search and get back further can be very rewarding. For instance a child in one census who is say 12 years old will only be two years old in the previous census 10 years before, its how you conduct the search and build your family tree. Try not to copy what other people have already done because as Rob L has already said some people just guess instead of truly sorting it all out, I made many such mistakes when I first began but you soon learn.

[Smiffy49 590]

Hi mgread1200,

After reading my last post #27 back to myself just now, I can see what you mean.

I must apologise to you as it was not meant as a rebuff to anyone on here.

When I first received this "part tree" from my relative I was filled at first with excitement and later doubt, but still with a glimmer of hope.

It is good to receive constructive information to hopefully avoid some of the pitfalls I suppose exist in tracing family history.

My Dad was told as a youngster that his Great Grandfather lived in a "castle"

It was in some ways true, but recently it turns out that it was in fact a village called "Elmley Castle".

My relative has earlier today sent me another "branch" of the whole tree and in this I have found the rather grand name of Theodosia Harrington born 1565.

I will see how we go on with this.....

Thanks for your encouragement mgread1200, I will boldly go where many others have already trodden, but with an element of caution at every turn.

Smiffy

[DAVIDW 1,681]

And that Theodosia Harrington of Rutland is in the index on that previous link , shes here , daughter of James Harrington. According to this she married an " unknown spouse" in 1581 . Strange !

http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=norvan&id=I408045

[littlebro 234]

Get one of these, easy peasy

[Cliff Ton 10,449]

And bear in mind that any census from the 1800s is less than 100% reliable.

The information written down is what the occupants of the house told the enumerator who knocked on the door. If the occupants wanted to keep someone secret, they didn't mention them; or they could say "this person is Ethel Smith, she is my aunt and was born in 1843" when in fact it was his sister Freda Jones born in 1864. The enumerators wrote down what they were told; there was little facility to prove or dis-prove otherwise.

[Rob.L 1,086]

Cliff,

That's about what my ancestor did for the 1851 census. Gave one of his middle names as his surname.

Might have been something to do with his dad having been transported to Australia for stealing meat a few years before. Said dad then married (bigamously as his first wife was still alive) in Aus and had half a dozen kids there to go with the nine he abandoned here!

[MELTONSTILTON 452]

Surely, everybody's family tree ultimately starts at Adam and Eve, so yes - we are all related.

Which is a worrying thought.

Mine starts with a monkey so my teachers told me

[StephenFord 866]

Yes, I've come across a few dark family secrets in my researches. For instance, my grandmother always said that there was something slightly furtive about her grandfather. From time to time, apparently, he had to disappear! I suspected, and eventually verified from the Public Records Office at Kew, that he had deserted from the Third Hussars in 1867, and was never recaptured. References to him in subsequent censuses were always a bit evasive. John Leonard born c.1841 became Charles Simpson born 1846 for the 1881 census. (Simpson was his mother's maiden name - and the whole family were listed as Simpson for that census - but apart from "Charles" all the dates and Christian names tallied). His year of birth was consistently (or rather, inconsistently!) misrepresented each time - except for the odd occasion when he wasn't included in the tally at all. In fact, the whole family lived a slightly schizophrenic existence. John's daughter (my great grandmother), born Susan Leonard in Edinburgh on 26 May 1864, married in Nottingham (1885) as Susan "Simpson". (By one of the most amazing co-incidences, her husband William Thomas Robinson, was born in Winterton, Lincs. on exactly the same day as her - 26 May 1864.)

On the other side of the family I discovered an attempted murder (though I'm glad to say that the guilty party was not a blood relative). He had married one of my paternal grandfather's half-sisters, and tried to "do her in".

And we all thought our forebears lived such innocent and upright lives !

[carni 10,094]

Just your average family then Stephen. My family research gets that confusing. I have to leave it for a couple of months and then go back and try to unravel them all. Good Luck with your research!

[katyjay 5,090]

Transcribers can have a lot to answer for, many of which are in India! We were looking for a relative in the Manchester area at one time, couldn't find any trace of the family anywhere, so hired a researcher. She finally found the family, the transcriber had put BRICK instead of BIRCH.