So You Call Yourself a Genealogist? Really...???

Sometimes I think some people just don't get it.  Let me see if maybe this time it will get thru... 

As a general rule 100 year old women don't give birth.  Seriously, when was the last time you actually knew of a woman that old giving birth? Let me explain.

Everytime I go digging around on Ancestry trees I find stuff like this.  It's actually very irritating when you are digging for some clues on your own family tree, you find some names that match.  You click and go for a visit.  When you get there you find wrong info, things like parents who birth babies at 100+ years,  children born before parents,  all sorts of stupid (and I do mean really stupid) stuff that never should have made it up there. 

So you take the time & drop a line - a friendly line, provide some documentation and send it off.  You get a response, "oh yeah, I must have missed that"...  thinking maybe it would be corrected.  NOT!

Next time you go digging there are now 10 others who now have posted this ignorant information on their family trees.  HELLO?  Doesn't anyone read any more?  Don't you pay attention or do you just CLICK & CLAIM to fill those family group sheets? Don't you ever update your tree when corrections are offered?   Is anyone out there actually paying attention?  Are you actually researching and finding real material?  There is so much ACTUAL scanned documentation available online that just Clicking & claiming is plain stupid.  No other way to say it.

Want me to take you seriously as a genealogist?  Then fix it when someone draws your attention to the errors, communicate and most of all DOCUMENT before posting!

I'm just saying...

Genealogist or Name Collector?

I really enjoy chatting with people about their genealogy research. When I go out on my speaking engagements - talking with the people who come to hear my talks is a really cool part of doing the talks. People inspire me - not only with new talk idea's but with research thoughts and success stories.

Inevitably I end up somewhere along the way with someone who has XXXX Thousand people in their data base & they are related back to XXXXX number of kings & queens - not that being related to kings & queens is a bad thing... we've all heard all those stories... I've even discussed them to some degree here.

My problem with this whole thing is multi-fold - let me explain -

• Documentation
• Research
• Documentation
• Research
• Documentation
• Research

As I see it there are two types of people working the genealogy circuit these days. There are those who truly do the research. They pull the records, the census, the vital records, the county histories. They know the work that goes into proving each person on the family tree. They've done it. They've done the searches, they been to the libraries, dug thru the newspapers and paid for the copies.

Then there are the name collectors - the "click & claimers*".... the ones who have no real idea of how to research or where to even begin. The ones who think that two weeks on Ancestry can provide them with everything they need to do their family history. The ones who are so gullible to believe everything they find online - without ever bothering to even prove one generation. You know the ones - their chart has the children born before the parents, in a state that didn't even exisist at the time.

Which are you?

Happy Researching!

Karen

*Click & Claim genealogy is the thought process that states if I can click on it I can claim it as my own forever & ever!

Genealogy & Television

With the onset of all the new television "reality" shows featuring genealogy - I have to wonder if this is a really good thing?

As you can tell by the way I phrased that sentance I don't watch alot of television. I do watch PBS usually after 8pm, usually while snuggled up in my warm comfy bed! Not alot of genealogy on PBS - I guess my favorite would have to be History Detectives. But even with that I do have questions??

They make it look so easy. In the span of an hour they can solve this whole mystery of what this is & what part it played in history. While fascinating - I always remind myself its not always as easy as they make it appear.

I wonder if all the people watching the new television series on tracing your roots understand that its not all going to happen in an hour or two hours? Are they going to understand that not everything found on Ancestry is gospel truth or the result of good genealogical research? Will they understand that you MUST go and collect the vital records on this and prove it for yourself? Will this new television show take the time to advise people to use vital records for documentation? I doubt it.

I'm sure there are a few people who will be flipping channels & come across this new show & decide to give it a try & find they are actually doing well with it. But what about the many who will see the show & not understand the reality of not being able to find your whole tree in an hour or who really will believe that "click & claim*" genealogy is the way to go?

When people ask what I do & I tell them that I research family history - I often hear.... "oh yeah my (insert name/relationship of relative here) found our whole tree on that Ancestry site. So we are all done. Got it all the way back to King (insert King name here), including the three brothers who came from (insert country name here) and we even found our Indian princess (insert Pocohantas here)." My only comment anymore is "OH REALLY?" I've truly given up on trying to convince people that everything found online or on Ancestry is NOT totally true. There are good researchers with sites on Ancestry & there is good info there. Problem is everyone assumes everything there is good. And with no one correcting ANYTHING - the error rate continues to rise!

Somehow I don't think this show is going to make researching anyone's tree any easier. In fact I'd be willing to bet a whole new bunch of "click & claim*" family trees show up on Ancestry the very next day.

After all, anyone can find their entire family history correctly documented and posted on Ancestry right?

Happy Researching!
Karen

*Click & Claim genealogy - If I can click on it - I can claim it for my own - promptly add it to my family tree. Heck it doesn't need any documentation right!?!?!?!?!!?