Genealogy Chat

Someone has been intouch with a name i had in my tree. After doing a lot of digging i have found there is no connection but also they have totally gone the wrong way. They had ask for my help, what do i do

see below. I did put this on General

if you are 100% sure they have got stuff wrong I would tell them, seems a shame if they are doing the wrong tree

Hi Linda Many thanks, i was looking to tell them but the thing is how do i tell them Julie

start from where you think they have gone wrong. I would say something like ' are you sure that........ because I thought..... or the certs I have say...' if they are serious about tracing their history they will be happy to pointed in the right direction, I know i would be anyway

Linda Im the same i would like someone to point me in the right direction.I 've ask if i can phone then as i no good at putting it on paper. Thanks for you help Julie xx

Will do, fingers crossed.

Let me know how you get on :)

Julie I have been in the same position and asked myself the same question. I didn't want to come across as a 'know it all' who was suggesting that my research was better than theirs, but I knew that if the positions were reversed and someone knew that I was wasting time, energy and money in pursuing completely the wrong line of enquiry, I WOULD want to be told and would actually be really grateful. Unfortunately on each of the four occasions when I have told someone this, they have got quite stroppy (in one case downright offensive) and rejected the idea. That's up to them. I was trying to help them. The only time that it annoyed me was when I saw that one of these people had put his tree, containing loads of errors, on Ancestry for all to see. I had not been the only person to politely point his errors out to him in the hope of helping him. Others got the same response. I even said I would be happy to post/email certificates to him to prove the errors, but he didn't want to know. You might like to say something like 'I can see how much work you've put into this and how important the tree is to you (whether you think it is or not) and am offering this advice in good faith so that you will be able to redirect your research and locate the right people' ....... or some such. The key is to not to make it sound like 'one-uppance'. If you can offer proof of what you're saying - even better. Still, be prepared that they simply won't believe you. Regards Amanda

I was on the receiving end. Someone told me that I was going down the wrong track. I researched a branch of the family without backing it up with a simple marriage certificate. This person suggested that I verify my info. and I did. I was most grateful because I was definately researching the wrong family. Susan

Hi Amanda When this person got in touch with me 2 days ago they say they had only just started this side of the family and could i help them. They opened their tree but have only gone back a couple of generations. Hopefully they'll let me ring them, and i can find out what certificates they have. Hi Susan Many thanks for you input and i hope they are like you and make what i say easier for me lol

A couple of years ago I was contacted, through GR, by an elderly man who said he thought we shared a common ancestor. He didn't have access to Ancestry and had only been able to consult the free 1881 census records. He gave me some details but gave the woman's (my great grandmother, as he thought)father's name as James. I knew it was Thomas as I had the marriage certificate. He had some of her other siblings on his tree. I opened my tree to him so that he could study it but he wasn't convinced. I started to research in case I was somehow wrong and managed to find his ancestor on earlier censuses. She had the same first name, place and year of birth, but the surname had one difference in spelling: Bithell/Bethell. The problem was, as I discovered, that these two names had been used interchangeably for some people on some of the censuses and on the 1881 his relatives had been recorded as Bithell instead of Bethell. I managed to locate his whole family on BMD indexes and on other censuses under the name Bethell and even looked up a couple of marriages in the the parish records for him, but he was having none of it. Sadly, I still see this man posting on the local history thread board of a local website, appealing for information about the wrong people, when they are there, waiting for him to put them on his tree, if only he would only stop being stubborn. His loss!

Amanda I have no certificates for the person they were asking after cos their in my tree as a brother to the sister that married my ancester. ( Did that make sense) last night i went backwards and foreward through the census and BMD to get from the name they asked about to the person in their tree where they say the connection is. I will tread very carefully when i speak to them and see what happens. Julie

Many thanks everyone Made phone call last night and all went well.He was very understanding that there might not be a connection, but i did say i would help him out though. Julie

Well done, Julie. Let's hope you can both find out some interesting info. Susan

Glad it went ok for you, I would definitly like to know, but in a kind way like you have done, I've had one occasion where someone told me that (they thought) my data was wrong but that was it. No explanation or help offered they were just concerned that I had 'their' ancestors on my tree. I've also had the other side where the person pointing out the error has been really helpful and it made a difference, we're not perfect and we're bound to make the odd mistake now and then, especially in the beginning!