[or-roots] Merged files

[Leslie Chapman]

One of the biggest problems with us "copiers" is when we don't know what our
chosen genealogy program will do with all of its wonderful bells and
whistles; I have mentioned this before but am bringing it up again as I
suspect it had a lot to do with the problems (Gary had? I sort of lost the
thread because my system crashed in the middle of checking my in box and I
lost some stuff and got a whole lot of it twice) with the 22 children.

I had one of my great grands married to the same woman something like 18
times. I started out and naivley "merged" two IGI files I got online at my
FHC with the skeleton of my maternal grandmother's line. What I DIDN'T
realize was FTM is too stupid to realize that Hannah Lewis married Jonathan
Melvin was the same woman as Hanah Lewis and Hana Lewis that two other
people had patched into the IGI, further more if Hannah Lewis is listed as
b. in Malden, Middlesex Co., Mass by one individual and
 b. in Malden, Middlesex County, Mass by another person, FTM "merges" her as
two seperate wives of Jonathan. Occasionally FTM will ask me if I want to
merge an individual with another person who is a name match and lo and
behold I discover I either am in the process of putting said individual in
the wrong place, or quite often I have just made another crossling in the
family web; I don't have a tree, it is a web, all the way back.

Anyway my point is a lot of us are NOT fanatic about accuracy as a "good"
genealogist should be; we don't have the time and resources to "go to
england to .	.	.	." and so we put these things together. The big problem is
folks not realizing what the limitations of the program are, not documenting
their sources. I learned fairly early that if a family tree didn't have
sources, I didn't want to use it unless I knew the person who had put it
together and their work habits.

Of course the other problem is the "wishful" genealogist: I have a document
put together by a cousin of my great grandma on my Dad's side with the
intent to "prove" our connection to the Trinity Church fortune. The whole
thing was a scam from the get go and cousin whatsis created a total piece of
fiction except for the generation above himself, I have it pretty well
documented from Census records, except for two of the children I suspect
never existed, but past that our line actually went straigt back to some
poor sod in Holland, while cousin traced us back five generations to New
York.

By the same token we are "supposed" to be related to Johnny Appleseed and
Stephen Foster. Unfortunately we cannot trace either line back far enough to
prove it and the suspicion is strong among those in the family doing the
digging back east the reason is we have no connection. So between those
facts and unscrupulous "professional genealogists" who sell people what they
want to hear or pad their research outrageously to charge more for the
results, there is a lot of "crap" out there.

By the same token, the internet lets us make connections with folks we might
never have found otherwise. I had a cousin  of my wifes call and talk to me
for an hour or more a week or so back about what I had right and wrong on a
web site I had posted a query about her and my wifes common ancestors on.
One of the ladies in our Gen Soc mad connection onlinw with a branch of her
family she didn't know existed, it turns out her grandfather had raised two
seperate families, they knew her branch existed, but he never told any of
famlly number two that family number one existed: over night she gained a
hundred or  more relatives.

So do I use internet stuff, you betcha: all carefully annotated with source
with the exception of one file of material that is still in my family tree
even though it is from before I learned to very carefully note my sources
(when I still had only a couple hundred folks)
the reason I keep it is I am sure some day I will find out one way or the
other about those folks, and hopefully when I do I can set the record
straight for all those folks who really want to know about those folks.

But if you look at my file you will find a lot of notes that say things like
"this family group solely based on the (fill in the factoid(s) here) and you
acccept this info at your own risk. Ironically a lot of those flimsy
assumptions have been proven out in my subsequent research. Nothing makes me
happier than John Doe that I find with Martha and three little Does in 1880
is one of my kin and tacking him on even though it is based on him being the
only John Doe who happens to be where MY John Doe was living with Daddy fred
Doe and Mommy Bithia in 1870. And the reason I know this is in 1900 I find
the same family group except that the Widow Bithia is know living with John
and has brought along his spinster sisters. I have literally dozens of
these. Of course I have many (maybe even dozens) of cases where subsequently
I found I had it all wrong. I was having a heck of a time with the age of a
"daughter" Nancy in one of my lines this weekend when i discovered she was
daughter-in-law in 1870 was why she was the same age that year that she was
in 1880 and ten years too old in for her age in 1860. Turns out I can't find
her in 1870.

So more power to all you perfectionist, and I am not the least bit offended
by you not wanting to use MY info, but I will still offer what help I can.

Les C

snippet
members and the anc. file was just added to as people sent in their files.
it was the anc. file where i found one set of my gr gr gr gr. parents who
the anc. file showed with something like 22 children and the dau. that i
desc. from was entered 4 or 5 times and each time with info that was just a
snippet
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