Runaway Family Trees

In some earlier posts, we talked about how you need to be willing to live with your family trees being posted on other websites or used by researchers you've never met for their projects. But even if you feel good about your evidence, names, dates and the overall structure of your project, you should also consider what it is like to be on the receiving end of erroneous online genealogy information. Let's look at some examples of how you can be burned by runaway family tree data:

(1) Leaps of Faith: Suppose you've got a common enough surname and family lore that connects your family with famous (or infamous) people in history. Starting from that point, you may make some pretty big leaps to connect to a line that you can't directly prove. You'll probably find it appealing to grab the first online family tree you find with "your ancestor." But if you assume that family is yours, you may (incorrectly) come to believe you have made a connection with the Sixteenth Century (or earlier) - when, in reality, you've skipped a step along the way. Never start your search with a conclusion! That would be like Detective Goren assuming the first person he interviews is the killer (the show would be over in 10 minutes!). For this reason, I'm personally not a fan of Ancestry's advertisements that feature the comment "I saw this little leaf"...

(2) Viral Errors: Probably more devastating to your search (in terms of wasted time and unwarranted excitement), this situation develops when many, many, many people have used the same incorrect information in their trees and posted the errors online. I've seen examples of well-meaning folks who published an incorrect family relationship or date on their websites and realized it soon afterwards - but not soon enough to prevent the mistakes from carrying over to many other sites. By the time you come along with your Google search, the "viral error" has spawned myriad more - and caused a cascading effect of inaccuracies across the web. It ends up being a scenario something like when a doctored photo or edited video goes viral - and that never works out well for anyone...

(3) Unreasonable Connections: It's rare, but I've encountered situations where someone who is clearly not related to a family has taken data they found on the web and forced the "square peg into the round hole." OK, maybe it was a mistake - but are you prepared to discuss that with them? Often, people won't be willing to admit they didn't hit the jackpot - and they may shoot the messenger. If you are lucky, it will be a meaningful opportunity to share evidence (and theories) and even examine potential connections. On the flip side, you may be unable to convince them that they are contributing to the "viral error" effect I described above. This, then creates more problems for future researchers.

A family tree posted on the web may contain true information, but you need to personally verify each generation backwards from yourself to the earliest known ancestor. Look for your relatives in the census and city directories and follow up with vital records - that is the only way to be "sure" you didn't jump to a conclusion. As a precaution, I recommend you always discuss any uncertainties in your published work. Remember: if you carefully research details and don't assume anything, your web search for news stories, photos and other potential trees can add much needed flesh to the skeleton of your basic family history. Happy hunting!