Genealogy Chat

Not only are some of the online trees wrong Sue, but they have just one line stretching back into the distant past and ignore all the siblings. Im talking about the peerage type ones - Ive got an aristo who had 7 kids but only the two eldest sons are shown on the online peerage tree - my poor devil was last in the line so he and all his other siblings dont figure. Its also very boring to just have a line stretching back with no side branches and the information about them.

Once you get back before 1837 so cannot have certificates and there were no censuses it can be tricky being sure you have got the right information. The IGI is useful and parts of it are fine but you can’t tell at a glance which bits, unless you can compare it with the original parish records. Maybe like me the parts of your tree you are working on are before parish records began so you need to rely on wills and land records etc. If so, then be very careful about assuming that a good looking tree online is accurate. I have spent the past couple of days working on a new branch of my tree back in the early 1500s and late 1400s. There is a site online listing generations back for this family and it claims to be sourced well. However I have found an error on it and think there may be another. I’ve downloaded a will which has helped me. I am also having a lot of problems making the accepted dates fit the generations I have found. I have looked at name matches on GR and there are a lot of members here with the same people in their trees. They have gone along happily with the online site so the error has been passed on. I like a good puzzle but some of the pieces aren’t fitting very well. So my tip to anyone finding a nice ready made genealogy out there is be careful and do a lot of your own research before accepting it as gospel. Sue

It is really easy to assume that if someone has already done a lot of research then they must be right. Some online trees look very authorative and have sources but there may be mistakes.