The prompt for Week 5 is "Challenge", 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
a challenge 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!
A few years ago I discovered a transcribed record in an online database that
illustrated the mistakes that can occur. The record for the baptism of
Hannah May below leapt out at me
when I first located it. Why?? Check the birth and baptism dates
again. According to this record Hannah was born 17 August 1796 but
baptised 6 weeks earlier on 9 July 1796.
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