The Basics of Fact Checking

I am constantly amazed by some of the errors and misinformation I find in online trees.  So many people make assumptions, ignore the basics of biology and put their (clearly incorrect) family trees online for others to copy - and the copiers accept their incorrect data without questioning errors which should be clear.

So without mentioning names or pointing fingers, here are some of the more eye-popping errors I have come across that really should leap out at researchers.

• Children cannot be born before their parents.  Really.  It just isn't possible.
• Children also cannot be born to a mother who is 6 years old.  Or 94 years old.  Again, just not possible.
• Children are highly unlikely to be born to a father who is 89 years old.  While this MAY be biologically possible, it is unlikely and deserves a bit of fact checking.
• A child cannot be christened 4 months before they are born.
• A woman cannot marry 3 years after she has died.
• A man cannot enlist in the army 5 years after he has died.
• No one can die in the decade before they are born.
• Full siblings cannot be born 4 months apart.  While medical technology may be making this possible today, it really wasn't possible in the 1840s.
• Travel takes time, especially before the age of the airplane.  In 1883 a child could not be born in England and christened in Australia 5 days later.  Something in this timeline is wrong.
• Yes, people do move around.  But they will not usually have three children born on three different continents in three years.

I can hear people laughing out there at some of these errors, but I've seen each of them included in online trees.  And believe me, getting these errors corrected can be next to impossible.

So the next time you are looking at an online tree that intersects with your family, remember to treat it with a degree of skepticism.  Always be aware of the limitations of basic chronology and biology.  Families, for the most part, follow common sense arcs and exceptions are not that common.  Look for corroborating evidence - and this does not mean another online tree that has probably copied the same errors.