Most Common Research Mistakes

[Kurtlg]

My husband's ancestors had a family cemetery on their farm. The family moved west and when descendants returned the new owners had plowed over the cemetery and the stones and site were lost.

Very sad. You also hear about family cemeteries where the land was sold and the owners don't want people to visit.

 

[Story]

I'd add a 7): Going to a single source and automatically accepting that statement as the truth. Many of our common notions of the CW fall apart once you go beyond the single source and start researching it in depth.

Kind of where I was going with 3), but restated.

 

[DixieRifles]

And one also needs to be familiar with first name substitutes and nicknames, especially regarding women (e.g. Katherine could have been Patricia; John could have been Jack).

During my early years of research, I kept coming across the name Eliza quite often. So I recorded their name as Elizabeth.
Finally! Someone informed me Eliza was a name used quite often and it was not an abbreviation.
I recognized I had a 2XGr-Grandmother named Eliza Jane as well as a granddaughter also with that name.

 

[Zella]

This is a really good thread.

I haven't had a chance to do genealogy in a few years, but I found quite a bit of the family lore to be wrong. One side that was supposed to be all Confederate had a decidedly more flexible sense of allegiance than what I'd be told. On another side, an ancestor who had always been written off as just dying young had quite the infamous local crime spree, including but not limited to stealing mules and killing someone at church, and was "shot accidentally during a card game." (That was my grandma's side of the family, and we both found it hilarious. Her aunts much less so.) Another side was supposed to be 100% German, but they're really only about 3/8 German. My grandparents on that side were orphaned as children and raised by older siblings. I think the family history got badly distorted in the process, even more so than usual. I also found a bizarre minor cult leader on that side. I enjoy the misbehaved ancestors. I have a lot of them, and I just find it interesting and entertaining. I mean, it's not like I'm the one stealing mules and killing people at church.

I'd also venture to say that really only a small number of the information of interest to a genealogist is digitized. It's very tempting to only rely on Ancestry or other websites, but local museums, historical societies, and libraries can really be your best friend.

As for the family cemeteries, I have at least 2 neighbors who've buried relatives on their land in the 21st century. Not as a crime thing but also not as an addition to an already established family cemetery. So, it's not just a relic of the past in some areas, though it's also not super common here.

 

[Dave D]

My great grandfather's name was Matthew; he was named after his grandfather, Matthew. He also had an uncle named Matthew and at least three cousins named Matthew. Most families of that cousin generation had a son named Matthew.

Man - was that a mess trying to determine which Matthew as which and the to which lineage he belonged. If you looked up the family name in the 1860 and 1870 census you would find Matthews in no less than 5 states (or territories), north & south.

 

[Zella]

My great grandfather's name was Matthew; he was named after his grandfather Matthew. He also had an uncle named Matthew and at least three cousins named Matthew. Most families of that cousin generation had a son named Matthew.

Man - was that a mess trying to determine which Matthew as which and the to which lineage he belonged. If you looked up the family name in the 1860 and 1870 census you would find Matthews in no less than 5 states (or territories), north & south.

One of my ancestors had a tradition that spanned at least 3 generations of naming all their boys George Washington, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson, and they all have the same surname. So, you have to be very careful to distinguish between who's a sibling, a nephew, an uncle, a dad, or a cousin. It nearly drove me crazy trying to keep track of all of them.

 

[huskerblitz]

The one nice thing about being adopted and researching your biological family is the absence of family lore noise.

The one bad thing is the absence of family lore noise.

 

[Seeking34]

No Kidding!! Not sure about the Butler's, but go through any mid-late 1800's city directory, pick any moderatly common Irish surname and you're likely to find eight James' or Jas, 7 Patrick's, six Thomas', a few of Jon's and Jno's, two Mary's, an Ellen and two or three Katherine Widow of Patrick's. Oh, and no more than three of any of those people are related!

Of course, I've never dealt with any Smith's, but I bet they're fun to trace. I had a history professor in college named John Smith. After telling us his name, his first comment was, "I've still not forgiven my parents for that name."

Try being a Wilson...

 

[BCS1973]

My husband's ancestors had a family cemetery on their farm. The family moved west and when descendants returned the new owners had plowed over the cemetery and the stones and site were lost.

That probably wouldn't happen in Virginia. Permission has to be given by the closest kin to move or alter a family cemetery. When the property's in question are sold, the Cemetery has to remain if no kin authorized re-interment and an easement granted for family members to visit the graves.

Occasionally kinfolk can't be found and projects like roads have to be re-routed around the cemetery.

 

[lupaglupa]

That probably wouldn't happen in Virginia. Permission has to be given by the closest kin to move or alter a family cemetery. When the property's in question are sold, the Cemetery has to remain if no kin authorized re-interment and an easement granted for family members to visit the graves.

Occasionally kinfolk can't be found and projects like roads have to be re-routed around the cemetery.

We have those same rules in New York. But if the new owner doesn't care and no one is watching then by the time someone realizes it's too late.

 

[Kurtlg]

I learned to never rely on family stories or traditions. I once had an employee who was primarily interested in WW2 but also the Civil War. He showed me an image of his great great uncle in uniform. . He said 2 of his aunts identified it but his "crazy" aunt that no one listened to said it was some one else. The 2 aunts repeated the same story that was passed down in the family. He did some extensive research and found that the crazy aunt was right after all. Some of my family stories turned out to be completely wrong. I think one was told in an attempt to cover an unpleasant event.

 

[Fairfield]

I think many people don't have any idea of history and just can't grasp such things.

There is not only a mistake made because of a faulty knowledge of history--but simply because of faulty knowledge in general about world differences.

Because of the ethnic make-up of our area, I do a lot of French-Canadian genealogy; the F-C's have a different system. I once worked with one frustrated individual who declared "Why can't those people keep their records in a decent fashion like we do?"

Poor cross-cultural skills also showed up in an online tree in which the compiled claimed to be from a line of Norwegian church worthies. What this person had done was to mistranslate "den eldre" as "the elder" (meaning a church elder). However, in Norway, it wasn't unheard of to have two living siblings with the same name; they were differentiated as "the older" (den eldre) and "the younger" (den yngre).

 

[lupaglupa]

There is not only a mistake made because of a faulty knowledge of history--but simply because of faulty knowledge in general about world differences.

Because of the ethnic make-up of our area, I do a lot of French-Canadian genealogy; the F-C's have a different system. I once worked with one frustrated individual who declared "Why can't those people keep their records in a decent fashion like we do?"

Poor cross-cultural skills also showed up in an online tree in which the compiled claimed to be from a line of Norwegian church worthies. What this person had done was to mistranslate "den eldre" as "the elder" (meaning a church elder). However, in Norway, it wasn't unheard of to have two living siblings with the same name; they were differentiated as "the older" (den eldre) and "the younger" (den yngre).

I'll add to this a misunderstanding of how the world used to work. I'll find family trees where the individual is logged as having been in two far flung places in a short period of time - say Nashville in the 1820 Census and also in Boston the same month the census was taken. That just wasn't possible for most people! Usually it takes me only a moment or two to show that one record or the other is mistaken. But the creator of the original tree added those facts without question since, today, you could do that easily.

 

[DorwinBlack]

I have a 2nd GGF - George C Gray, born about 1820 in Wilkesville, Ohio - who apparently abandoned his wife and children sometime during the 1850s to head out to California during the Gold Rush. He disappeared from all Ohio census records after 1850, but his wife and children were still there, living with George's father and extended family.

For many years I just assumed he had died during some epidemic in the 1850's and been buried in an anonymous grave, leaving a widow and two children. Then a record hint shown up for the California Great Registers showing a George Claypool Gray (45yo, born in Ohio) living in a mining camp in Tuolumne California in 1867. Well George's mother was Hannah Claypool, so I was all but certain this was my ancestor, and he had not died, but had left Ohio during the Gold Rush and never returned!

 

[Fairfield]

I'll add to this a misunderstanding of how the world used to work. I'll find family trees where the individual is logged as having been in two far flung places in a short period of time - say Nashville in the 1820 Census and also in Boston the same month the census was taken. That just wasn't possible for most people! Usually it takes me only a moment or two to show that one record or the other is mistaken. But the creator of the original tree added those facts without question since, today, you could do that easily.

All too, too frequent. Not only in genealogical research but in non-genealogical historical research in general. Geographical ignorance is a bane.

 

[Story]

All too, too frequent. Not only in genealogical research but in non-genealogical historical research in general. Geographical ignorance is a bane.

1) Maps are wonderful things.
2) Period maps give me goosebumps (but that's a Cav thing anyway)
3) GOOGLE Maps can be your friend. Want to calculate period distances? Put in both of your end points in DESTINATION and then select the little walking man. Chances are he'll follow the historical pathways (or 'close enough') to give you an idea how long it took/takes to get from Point A to B in 1861/65.

 

[Story]

7) (continuing my Grandpa Simpson style rambling from above) Do NOT become fixated on searching between April 1861 and April 1865 - particularly if there's a dearth of information on your subject. You can sometimes pick up a cold trail by looking before/after the war (as evidenced here by the one West Point sergeant having Mexican War experience, which is why he became an instant-officer at the outbreak of the ACW). Savvy?

 

[Story]

I'll add to this a misunderstanding of how the world used to work. I'll find family trees where the individual is logged as having been in two far flung places in a short period of time - say Nashville in the 1820 Census and also in Boston the same month the census was taken. That just wasn't possible for most people! Usually it takes me only a moment or two to show that one record or the other is mistaken. But the creator of the original tree added those facts without question since, today, you could do that easily.

In this case, asking oneself "why?" might break more data free. Did someone answer for the subject in one of the locations? [Why yes, John Smith does live here. He's 20 years old... yadda yadda] That begs the question, why was he maintaining two mailing addresses?

 

[Fairfield]

1) Maps are wonderful things.
2) Period maps give me goosebumps (but that's a Cav thing anyway)
3) GOOGLE Maps can be your friend. Want to calculate period distances? Put in both of your end points in DESTINATION and then select the little walking man. Chances are he'll follow the historical pathways (or 'close enough') to give you an idea how long it took/takes to get from Point A to B in 1861/65.

That good advice goes even for current events. There was a newspaper article about a foreign tourist, headed for Portland (Oregon), who managed to wind up in Portland (Maine)--probably because he didn't understand about US state geography. Because both Portlands are on the ocean (albeit a different ocean), his mistake wasn't immediately obvious to him.

 

[lupaglupa]

@Story I love the idea of estimating old time travel by looking at walking today. It's hard for us to imagine just how long it took for folks to get places. Roads were few and pretty awful, horses were slow, walking wasn't much slower. People didn't travel much.

@Fairfield I think that tourist was lucky - Portland Maine is a lot nicer than Portland Oregon