Genealogy Mistakes

I had a chance to watch one of Legacy's December webinars last week. James Baker talked about "The 6 Big Genealogy Mistakes." He had examples from his own research for each item. See if any of the following are familiar from our discussions on Tuesdays.

1. Trusting data from our family historians: it's important to prove or disprove family myths and stories that have been handed down through the generations.

2. Connecting the wrong people with the same name: not only names like Smith, but other names are more common than you might think.

3. Failing the "reasonableness" test: are your ancestors having children while still children themselves? Look for impossibilities in dates and places.

4. Trusting the genealogy snake oil salesman: many family history books have incorrect data.

5. Trusting in old-time long-time data: there have been mistakes made with Mayflower descendants, Jamestown descendants, DAR and SAR submissions.

6. Trusting the original record for accuracy: transcribers and indexers make errors, newspaper obits contain mistakes, and death record informants don't always know the right answers.