Another example of why not to accept automated systems
So The Legal Genealogist opened the email program this morning and there it was.
A personal discovery, just for me, according to the automated system notice from one of the big genealogical companies.1
Another user had traced one of my nemesis ancestors back further in time than I’ve managed, and I can “add an entire branch to (my) family tree with 12 people, in just a few clicks!”
I’d love to be able to do that with Philip Shew, my fifth great grandfather, whose parents and grandfather and more are in that branch of 12 people I can add to my tree with those few clicks.
Philip was born c1750, and we’re not sure where he was before he showed up on the census in Guilford County, North Carolina, in 1790.2 He was in Wilkes County, North Carolina, by 1810,3 and still there in 18204 and 1830.5 His will was proved in the Wilkes County court in the October term 1832.6
We don’t have a clue in the paper trail who Philip’s parents were. And boy would it be nice to add them.
So, dear reader, you tell me whether I should go ahead and add these folks with just those few clicks:
Right. Philip, born 1750. Hans Ulrich in 1685. A 65-year-old father. Not impossible, but not likely. And Hans Ulrich’s one-and-only-ever wife, Anna, born 1678. Which would make her 72 years old when Philip was born.
Sigh.
I love discovering things that relate to family history.
But discovering fiction?
That I can do without.
And the moral of this story is: never ever ever accept automated add-to-your-tree suggestions without thoroughly checking the facts on which those suggestions are based.
Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “Discovering fiction,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 16 Sep 2019).
SOURCES
- I’m not saying which one because they all do this: they all give us hints based on submissions of other users that we can accept. But usually shouldn’t… ↩
- 1790 U.S. census, Guilford County, North Carolina, p. 505 (penned), col. 1, line 17, Philip Shoe; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 24 July 2002); citing National Archive microfilm publication M637, roll 7. ↩
- 1810 U.S. census, Wilkes County, North Carolina, p. 865 (penned), line 10, Phillip Shew; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 25 July 2002); citing National Archive microfilm publication M252, roll 43. ↩
- 1820 U.S. census, Wilkes County, North Carolina, population schedule, p. 530 (stamped), Phillip Shew; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 3 August 2002); citing National Archive microfilm publication M33, roll 83. ↩
- 1830 U.S. census, Wilkes County, North Carolina, p. 383 (stamped), Phillip Shew; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 14 July 2002); citing National Archive microfilm publication M19, roll 125. ↩
- Wilkes County, North Carolina, Will Book 4:159; North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh. ↩
I’m not sure which is worse a, a 65 year old father and a 72 year old mother or a 4 year old mother and an 8 year old father, when their child was born.
Your case. The older parents are at least theoretically possible (at least with today’s modern medical technology…). 🙂
So true! In my case, the putative father died before “his” last 5 children were born. Two couples with similar names in separate communities
LOL!! Definitely & strictly entertainment, not useful. Or, as my mother would say with “Hmph” and a flick of her hand, “Interesting, but not impressive.”
Argh! I got one of those messages today, too! And, Celia, your mother has a great response. Ditto!
Lol! In the very batch of e-mails in which this Blog came, came also one of these offers to add a person to my Tree. Someone who does not belong, wrong name, wrong dates, wrong location. I am certain that this person is not one of “mine”. Sometimes I am offered a mystery person who might fit. I always check these possible family members just in case. Although I am certain this one does not fit, I will check it anyway.
Always check. Always always always. Even the craziest impossible stories sometimes have a grain of truth. So we don’t click-and-add, but we sure check to see if we can find that grain!!!
What’s sad is the number of people who blindly copy this stuff.
Sadly, this is not the only case of this and other irregularities that I’ve found in my research recently.
I’ve been researching a family with an unusual last name and found a family history with tons of sources listed. So I decided to review my research before I started digging into those sources.
So I was quite surprised to find that the son of one of my ancestors went from being under 10 in the 1830 Census to 29 in the 1840 Census and his step mother completely ignored. So while trying to figure out how he aged close to 20 years, I found that someone had made a “correction” to his age using the editing/correction function in the Census records on Ancestry.com. It is clearly marked on the image that he was not that old.
Sadly, this is apparently a systemic issue with those connected to this family. After all, the child born to the 4 year old mother and 8 year old father is the half sister of the young man who aged 20 years in a decade.
Oh, Ancestry.com also has the half sister (my ancestor) listed as the implied daughter of her husband and her children as her siblings in the 1870 Census, all based on her age.
So much fun!
Ouch.
Hello Judy,
I am the author and owner of the Poolside Genealogy blog. I’m a fan of The Legal Genealogist blog and would like to share some of your posts with my readers. Will you grant me permission to cite and link to those articles from your blog which I deem to be of interest to my readers? If so, what are the parameters you require for said citation? Thanks very much.
Anyone can cite and link to any of my blog posts without getting additional permission. It’s only when folks quote the posts (in whole or in part) that permission is needed. So a snippet about a post of mine that looks like one of the snippets on the front page of your blog (before the Read More indicator) is fine, and you’ll never go wrong citing one of my posts the way the citation appears at the bottom of the post with the indicator: Cite/link to this post.
I don’t mind getting Person Discoveries as they may have possibilities that I’ve never considered before. My bigger not is they too often are based on the spouse of a relative, whose family I rarely want in my tree. I’m not trying to build a one-world tree.
Instead of delivering to you the “good news” of this impossible (at the time) set of parents, the site software that’s looking for matches ought to be delivering the “bad news” to the tree owner that their construction is false on its face and should be deleted. And the site that hosts it ought to display it with a “tombstone” border and warning message.
When I was offered a price could not pass up for Ancestry, I rejoined. Knew my niece had done some ancestry work so was eager to see what she found. ARG! she had my husband’s father married to only one person, not my husband’s mother. [He had 3 wives.] And he died way after my husband’s father did. While I don’t have the actual date, know we were living in Maine as my husband and his brother [the father of my nephew] discussed at length whether to challenge the will. And I do know the dates that we were in Maine. So frustrating especially, she has pushed her family away from us. Oh well. Its family for sure.
I, too, am someone who is driven berserk by these announcements of discoveries. I always write a rebuttal but I doubt the computer program does anything with them; certainly a live person never does. I should never have participated in initially contributing a small group of [sourced] ancestors. Although I do respect and value the records that have been preserved by this organization over the years when I get drivel the respect grows less with each email.
My own view is that I can do nothing to control what other people put in their trees. All I can do is try to do the best job I can on mine and hope that, eventually, the good begins to outweigh the bad.
One of those “fake” trees I found had the parents as 132 years and 131 years! The child Samuel married and had 5 children; then he had 2 daughters from another relationship; then he married and had another 6 children Is it any wonder he died at the age of 44?! Oh dear.
Oh my…