[or-roots] Merged files

[Gary Murray]

HI LESLIE:  i guess what i was trying to say is- if the data contains any 
inaccuracies, it is worthless.  you have no way of knowing if the rest is 
accurate or not.  i have been fortunate to be able to go and do genealogy in 
very strange places.  my dad was born and raised in scotland so when i went 
there i went straight to the source.  everything i have done in england, 
scotland, SLC, and anywhere else, i could have done at the local family 
history library.  this is not a cheap hobby, but like anything else, if it 
isn't done correctly, it isn't worth the paper its written on.  as i've 
saaid before, people put their incorrect data on the internet and other 
people copy it without bothering to check it for inaccuracies.  case in 
point:  i have a very distant cousin who has done what vaguely passes for 
research on our bonney family.  it is so full of holes that it has turned 
into a huge pile of [you know what].  he desc. thru the bonney line but we 
split about 3-4 generations back.  he has had the audacity to continue my 
line down as far as he found.  [supposedly].  it isn't even close.  i 
offered to help him correct it.  i even asked nicely.  he acted as though i 
had demanded his first born.    i am now running into people who have taken 
his material off the net with no sources.  he won't give any.  the ones who 
take his data off the net are continuing to pass it on to "the copiers" as 
gospel.  people that have families or are short on funds should go to the 
lds family history library and do what they can afford to do, but do it 
accurately.  i often wonder why it is so important to have a certain number 
of names in your database.  remember, there were what i call "tent creepers' 
WAY back when.  good luck to all that do this "hobby??"  i go into the 
hospital this morning for heart problems and go back to my dr. nov. 5th to 
restart my chemo for the cancer i have.  thanks for listening to my ranting. 
i know i am a nut about this accuracy thing, but that is the way i was 
taught.
gary in az. [back to ore. this spring]
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Leslie Chapman" <khanjehgil at presys.com>
To: <or-roots at sosinet.sos.state.or.us>
Sent: Sunday, October 24, 2004 10:14 PM
Subject: [or-roots] Merged files


> 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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