- Joined
- May 23, 2018
I look at other people's family trees on there out of nosiness, but I always check for documentation--and rarely find it. (Learned my lesson the hard way when I first started using Ancestry. My tree was such a mess that I had to just start a new family tree.) In looking at family trees on there, I have found quite a few people who had children before they were born!
One of the craziest I found lately was one of my g-g-g-g grandpas. His grandfather named his sons names like James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington. And then 2 of those sons named all their sons those names. So, my g-g-g-g had multiple uncles, cousins, and brothers all with the same 3 names!
Fortunately, the birth and death dates and counties of residence are distinct enough that you can parse who is who, but I found where people had just randomly added all of the Civil War service records for that name for one of the Thomas Jeffersons, without ever thinking about how the info was contradicting itself. They had him serving in two different states at the same time!
One of the craziest I found lately was one of my g-g-g-g grandpas. His grandfather named his sons names like James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington. And then 2 of those sons named all their sons those names. So, my g-g-g-g had multiple uncles, cousins, and brothers all with the same 3 names!
Fortunately, the birth and death dates and counties of residence are distinct enough that you can parse who is who, but I found where people had just randomly added all of the Civil War service records for that name for one of the Thomas Jeffersons, without ever thinking about how the info was contradicting itself. They had him serving in two different states at the same time!