Over my years as a Family History researcher, I have been constantly amazed by some of the errors and misinformation I've found in online family 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 at a glance.
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.Major family history website Ancestry has announced that it is acquiring UK military records website Forces War Records.
Ancestry, which holds over 24 billion family history records from 80 countries, has purchased Clever Digit Media, which owns and operates Forces War Records as well as family history research service British Genealogy.
Since it was founded in 2010, Forces War Records has transcribed 26 million Commonwealth military service records from the First and Second World Wars and other conflicts, two million of which are exclusive to the site.
Ancestry has not yet announced what the acquisition will mean for Forces War Records’ collections, but an Ancestry spokesperson said they expected it would be “business as usual” for the site.
In further Ancestry news, it has been announced that home access to Ancestry Library Edition will continue until 30 September 2021. Ancestry made the decision back in April 2020 to allow this database, normally only accessed in the library buildings using our public PCs or wi-fi, to be accessed from home while the CoronaVirus pandemic impacted library access for many. So Campaspe Library members can continue to access this fantastic genealogical resource from home.
Many families have their own traditional names which are passed down generation by generation and occur frequently in the family tree. In many countries there are naming traditions that are frequently followed, some of which might seem quite strange to us today. There are names which go in and out of fashion, especially in response to Monarchs and other prominent people of the time.
In my own family, one naming tradition which took me aback when I first encountered it was the habit of reusing a name given to a dead child. In my Green family a few generations back I have three Isaacs in one generation - the first two died young and the name was reused for the next-born son each time. Eventually persistence paid off and the third Isaac Green in that family lived well into his 90's. His father was named Isaac as well, and the name crops up in several other generations. In my mother's Pummeroy family William and Alfred are popular, and recur several time across the generations. This can create an additional challenge in making sure any information I find is linked to the correct person - I have a newspaper article from Trove that mentions William Pummeroy - and I have four of them alive at the time that the article could be referring to!
In my Irish family line, the tradition of naming the first son for the paternal grandfather (not a habit unique to Ireland by any means) also causes me headaches. My ancestor James Mulholland had 5 sons, 4 of them living to adulthood. These 4 adult sons - James, Patrick, David and Henry, ALL went and named their first son James! As they all lived in fairly close proximity, this means I have 4 men named James Mulholland living within a few miles of each other, born within 5 years of each other - and two of them married women named Mary.
Abbreviations and nicknames also complicate my research - my father's second brother Ernest was always known as Squib, sometimes even on official documents. In my mother's family, I have great- aunts Thelma, known as Lalla ; Elizabeth, known as Betty and Pricilla, known as Illa. Another Elizabeth, in my father's family, was always known as Betsy, even in census records, on her children's baptism records and on her own death record.
All these various name usages can throw up roadblocks and cause mistakes in my research. Recurring names make it difficult to ensure I am researching the correct person any time I locate new information, and nicknames, spelling changes and wholesale name changes can mean I completely miss relevant records because I don't know the name variation used at the time.
Today is Mother's Day, a day when we celebrate and thank our mothers. For many mothers out there, this special day has its own special traditions, from breakfast in bed to flowers to visits or phone calls from adult children. Every family has its own way to celebrate the day.
Celebrations of mothers and motherhood can be traced back to the ancient Greeks and Romans, who held festivals in honor of the mother goddesses Rhea and Cybele, but the clearest modern precedent for Mother's Day is the early Christian festival known as “Mothering Sunday". The modern Mother's Day began in the United States, at the initiative of Anna Jarvis in the early 20th century.
For people like me, whose mothers have passed away, Mother's Day is a special time to remember our mothers and reflect on their lives and the influence they have had upon the people we are.
My mother, Joy Patricia Green (nee Pummeroy) was born 24 January 1942 in East Brighton, Victoria and died 8 May 2015 in Echuca, Victoria.
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| Joy Pummeroy, age 11 |
My mother's mother, Gladys Daisy Pummeroy (nee Clark) is the only grandparent I can remember, and was another major influence on my life. She was born 30 June 1906 in Brighton, Victoria where she lived her entire life and died 5 August 1995.
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| Gladys and Joy Pummeroy, January 1967 |
The latest issue of Who Do You Think You Are magazine is now available free online for Campaspe Library members via our subscription to Libby eMagazines.
