Thursday, October 31, 2024

Week 44 (Oct. 28-Nov. 3): Challenging

The prompt for Week 44 is "Challenging", which pretty much describes most aspects of family history research at times.  How to pick just one area upon which to focus?

One aspect of research I find truly challenging is the amount of misinformation and inaccurate research I find out there.  Incorrectly transcribed records, inaccurate original records, outright lies, and poor research skills can cause all sorts of problems for the unwary.

Online trees on any website I find can be full of errors, many of which are perpetuated by other researchers simply copying the incorrect information without  trying to verify it - even without noticing that the information is impossible!

Some of the impossibilities to keep in mind :

  • Children cannot be born before their parents. 
  • Children cannot be born to a mother who is 6 years old.  Or 94 years old
  • 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.
  • Full siblings cannot be born 4 months apart.
  • 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.
I have seen all of these, and more, in online family trees.  And trying to contact the tree owner to get their errors corrected?  Challenging indeed! 

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