What - if anything - to do about bogus genealogy?

The Chieftain

I sometimes despair of how much totally bogus information there is "out there" (i.e. online) for some of my family lines. I can see that others are already using this bogus information, but I can't see a way to stop it. Have others encountered this? Is there a remedy?

Like most people, I have some relatives in the US - mainly descendants of a great-great-uncle who emigrated in 1882. Multiple descendants of his seem to have caught the genealogy bug, as I can see at least 4 different family trees including him on Ancestry, and there are others elsewhere. Trouble is, these trees vary from the somewhat inaccurate, to the just plain totally awful. The author of at least one family tree just literally takes people with a matching name randomly from all over the world, and plops them in her tree.
To give you a flavor:
- This great-great uncle was born in 1838, yet the tree has (bogus) parents for him still alive in 1930s and living in a particular place!
- His wife has children with him in 1860's , but she is then shown as unmarried in England in 1871 census!- just took a person of that name.
- Gives 1880s marriage date, based on some random marriage in Wales, but shows all children born 1860s and 70's in Ireland
- Lots of misreadings of source materials and repeats of mistranscriptions by Ancestry,
- And so on, and on, person after person, detail after detail. The end result is a sort of Frankenstein, with random bits from Ireland, England, Wales and the US stitched together...

I tried to contact people, but got no replies from most. One person who did briefly communicate basically used the information I gave her to add in yet more bogus information, feeding off the real information I gave her...

So, what - if anything - to do? These people are my relatives, so why are they not replying? Why not communicate with someone actually from their ancestor's very location in Ireland, who can extend their lines back another 100 years? More fundamentally, don't they realize that what they are doing is bogus? Very frustrating. I have thought of putting my "correct" line online, but it may actually appear less documented than the bogus one. The bogus ones have links to Ancestry material for just about everything, trouble is they are just random people with the same name. My line is based on a lot of material that is not in Ancestry.

pinkypinky

I feel your pain but don't think it's worth your time and effort to make contact again. If they want to have unresearched, problematic trees out there, let them. I put selective parts of my tree online when it suits me to use Ancestry's hint system. I've made a few contacts with distantly related people, but most do not know more than I do, and several have spurious information in their trees. A couple of times I politely requested their research, saying it was a bit different to mine. No responses. I don't think we can do anything about it.

Thomas from Presence

Some people are interested more in people collecting. Back in the 16th century an early Brunkard had the misfortune of becoming documented and siring children that would eventually end in Diana Windsor meaning that this line has become extremely popular and the knowledge of the line is being destroyed.

My approach is to make sure that I have public facing trees with references and documents to help get it under control. Ultimately the truth will out.

VirginiaB

This issue is a constant problem that won't go away. My tree is on Ancestry and it is private. Diligent researchers can contact me thru the private message system and I always answer. And I have contacted others the same way. Sometimes we have a match; sometimes not. There have been some amazing results for all concerned.

I hate the thought of dying with all this research going with me but I don't know what the answer is. Close cousins who have made their trees public now have photos and info about our fairly immediate family attached to total strangers. What is the answer? I don't know.

Hermy

I don't know that there is anything one can do about bogus genealogy other than be aware of it.
However, what I wouldn't do is ignore it as even the most error-strewn tree may contain some bit of information that doesn't feature elsewhere.
Then too, it is sometimes worth pondering how a tree comes to have a particular error.
A chart compiled by my mothers Uncle in the 1970's contains one particular error which also strangely appears in a tree at Ancestry. While the matter has yet to be resolved I no longer rush to dismiss apparent inaccuracies in others work.

pedroeibar1

You must ignore bogus information, or you will become increasingly frustrated, annoyed and eventually demented!

The errors usually emanate from a single “ancestor collector” whose tree is then copied repeatedly. This is the case with several online trees containing my surname family. In the past when I politely queried conflicting info posted by the main “authority” (a US-based “professional” genealogist) I got a couple of borderline abusive emails so I never bothered after that. She also posted a page of “sources” on a Family Name Forum. In a follow-up post I queried the relevance of several those “sources” - mostly the titles of books containing the name of a well-known family member, no specific BMD info., and showed how she had confused two distinct branches (split 1500’s), mixed up descendants of two brothers, had the incorrect wife for a key/gateway ancestor, etc., - she never posted again. Another person (in Ireland) has copied/pasted my research I’d sent to a (good) researcher on a UK site for my family-name and passes it off elsewhere without crediting his sources and has added several major errors – I contacted him to query his additional info. with the site manager on copy - neither responded and the information is still displayed on an Irish Co.Co. website.

However, if you do (rarely) get a response from a “bogus” tree owner it is inevitably on the lines of the last one I got “Thanks for the info. My XfamilyX info is a little speculative - I know my great- great-grandfathers name and one brother - and there is no one left to confirm any info (to my knowledge). Bear with me as I try and verify everything over time.” Speculative indeed – he had “adopted” small farmer RC brothers and put them in what appears to be a staunchly Presbyterian "trade" family.

I have no tree online but periodically use FTM’s smart match. As a result I have had some really pleasant email exchanges and meetings and have had very worthwhile information swaps.

My rule for online trees – “Genealogical accuracy is inversely proportional to the number of people contained in a tree.”

shanew

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

You must ignore bogus information, or you will become increasingly frustrated, annoyed and eventually demented!
...
My rule for online trees – “Genealogical accuracy is inversely proportional to the number of people contained in a tree.”

ditto on both these..... if I'm looking into a query and find a large online tree then I back off an leave them to it. You can usually spot the reasonable online trees as a) they have smaller numbers, and b) even if they dont include sources, they show reasonable key details - e.g. proper locations, not just Ireland, or 'either Cork or Donegal..'.

I'm lucky that no bogus trees showed up for any of mine - I recognise any of the people who have details online, mostly information passed on to them by me.

The Chieftain

Thank you all for the input. Much to ponder.

Hermy

Just rereading my previous post now and I've made a stupid comment.
When I said that one shouldn't ignore it I didn't mean to suggest that one should give credence to out and out bogus genealogy but rather I was thinking of my attitude to on-line trees generally.
My experience with on-line trees has been mostly positive and I'm glad to give them my time but obviously the really bad ones are to be mostly ignored.

tabbey

There are ancestor collectors, and there are family historians.

Any type of historian worth the title, will seek sources, and probe any data with a fine tooth comb, before accepting such info as fact.

We cannot be held responsible for the vanity and shoddiness of others, even if they bring genealogy into disrepute.

The Chieftain

tabbey wrote: »

There are ancestor collectors, and there are family historians.

Any type of historian worth the title, will seek sources, and probe any data with a fine tooth comb, before accepting such info as fact.

We cannot be held responsible for the vanity and shoddiness of others, even if they bring genealogy into disrepute.

You raise an important point, though. And that is that the state and content of Irish records makes it almost impossible to prove a line of descent with absolute certainty, based just on the written record. To trace a Murphy family from Dublin back to, say, Kerry, usually requires some additional information, usually from family tradition [an argument that I once had with Sean Murphy]. That being so, I have to confess that I have made some misidentifications myself over the years - but I kept trying to test the (mis)identifications. The key difference in those I seek to criticize is that they seem happy to grab names at random, on no particular basis (other than name), and seem to apply no common sense questioning to their choices (such as, is it really reasonable that both parents are still alive, aged over 120, etc.).