Flipping heck, is this how the info is getting out there?

[Glen TK]

Just went on TP and thought I'd check the connections, jumped from 54 before (in 7 trees) to finding one tree with 83 common names, now TP has a new thing, to me anyway, that now shows if the connection has the same details or if they differ. This tree with 83 common nnames has ONE that is the same, the rest all have less information, checked the homepage for it and it has over 40,000 names. The differences in most records are that they use abbreviations for pob, I've thrown a couple of wrong dates on my online stuff and they have been duplicaterd in this tree too. I think I've found where a lot of this gedcom gathering site rubbish is coming from as those same abbreviations appear on those sites too.

Makes you wonder why people bother sometimes.

[Glen TK]

Just found another huge blooper in another tree on there 8not for the first time in that one either). Why is it these WRONG trees are the ones who get all the contacts and share the wrong stuff that then gets shared again and again yet nobody ever seems to contact me?

Getting the blood pressure up a wee bit now

[Olde Crone]

Deep breaths, Glen, deep breaths......

I was told that I must be wrong, as 9 people had this woman in their tree and I was the only one saying she died when she was four! They had all copied from each other, but hey, nine people can't be wrong.

Someone recently contacted me through TP, where I have a hobby tree. He congratulated me in a rather patronising way and opened his Ancestry tree to me. He had made a huge and basic mistake in our mutual relative and I gave him chapter and verse about why he had picked the wrong man and who the right man was. He completely ignored me and has gone on adding daily to his wrong relative.

Why would you do that? Why would you go on working on something that was wrong and adding to it? What on earth is the point?

OC

[HarrysMum]

Corse they're all right.....heavens...if my great grandfather can die before his first brithday, anything is possible....

[Shona]

TP? Sorry to seem daft, but what is TP?

[HarrysMum]

Tribal Pages, Shona.

[marquette]

This could be how it starts too -

Sydney Morning Herald 23 April 1949
"MARRIED LAST NIGHT
MAJOR KENNETH COLE and MRS. COLE, who was formerly Madame Caroline Chambrelent, leaving St. Stephen's Church, Macquarie Street, after their marriage yesterday. Major Cole's cousin, AIR-VICE MARSHAL A. T. ("KING") COLE was best man and MRS. ERNEST WATT was matron of honour. Mr. Ernest Watt gave away thet bride, who wore a beautiful afternoon frock of steel blue heavy silk with short cuffed sleeves, a buttoned skirt falling into soft folds and a bodice embroidered with metallic beads and pearls. Major and Mrs. Cole left by air last night to spend their honeymoon at Mount Macedon and will make their home in Melbourne."

If anyone believed that the Major and the Air Vice Marshall were cousins, then they would be in trouble.

I would love to know if they thought they were cousins, but they were not, they just have the same surname and some family members lived in the same suburb. I can prove they were not even slightly related.

But it must be true, it was in the newspaper !!!

[Olde Crone]

Oh yes, my GGF's obituary. "He is survived by three sisters". True. But they are not HIS sisters, they are sisters to each other and in fact his sisters-in-law.

OC

[Glen TK]

I'm waiting on a couple of certs but it seems I've got a 1935 marriage of two people with the surname of Chambers, if the certs tell me what I suspect both trace back to the same village, it seems the 1935 couple are cousins of some degree, one tree on TP has the two lines mangled, it's still wrong despite the tree owner acknowledging the error. I know it's wrong as the error surrounds my great grandmother Martha Thorbon Elmer, (married to the wrong George Chambers) and I have all her certs, census etc. That same error is on at least a dozen online trees but does anyone ever contact me........erm no, they just seem to jump on the first fouled up tree and it spreads like wildfire.

When you point out the mistake the reply is usually well she is the mother of my grandfather or whatever, seems they can't even make the connection that if they had the right marriage she would be their direct ancestor, granted we can all make a mistake but why, when it's a direct ancestor, do people just fly back from the mistake regardless?

[Chris in Sussex]

I have become very wary of contacting people who I believe have a mistake in their tree.

I usually write stating what I believe is correct but ask them to point me in the right direction where I have made an error, thereby putting myself in the 'wrong' and, until recently, this worked well.

But I have twice received rather rude and aggressive replies that were obviously designed to put me in my place, one particularly made me feel like I had been scraped of the bottom of their shoe.

Neither would entertain the idea they could possibly be incorrect in their research but didn't provide any details as to why they were right and I was wrong even though I had given then chapter and verse on what I thought and asked for guidance as to where I had made an error.

I want my tree to be accurate and if someone contacted me, in a nice way, pointing out a possible error I would be pleased to correspond to sort it out. It has happened to me in the past and I am enternally grateful to the person who did.

I am probably guilty of being a bit 'precious' about my ancestors but I believe they deserve to be respectfully remembered with their lives recorded acurately, not as a notch on the belt of someone who just wants a big tree!

Chris