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Saturday, March 5, 2016

Copy at your Peril

It happens.....

Last night I was going over some old research and realised that something just didn't gel, so I did a bit of Troveing and looking at new resources online including a very well-sourced tree on Ancestry (there are some).

When I had done this part of an in-law's tree more than ten years ago I was too hasty and I made a big BooBoo in attaching children to a wrong set of parents.

Being a caring, sharing sort of person I uploaded my data to a private Ancestry tree and, when I created it, my family website. So this misinformation has been out in geneaspace for over ten years.

I am wondering if anyone has visited my site, looked at the assertions I make there and copied them willy-nilly without checking on their validity?

This is a WARNING - If you are going to use the data from my site please double-check to make sure that I was on the right track when I published. I have been known to meander more than once.

BTW I have removed the offending tree from Ancestry and uploaded a more accurate one, I have also reloaded a fresh Gedcom to my family site.

I wonder if those who have blindly copied my errors will do the same?

7 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. Sorry - I deleted the previous comment because it kept saying I had missed a mandatory field. Only way I could get out of it was delete. Here is what I posted originally ...

    And I think we can all relate to this - things have changed over the decades including our research methods. Your comment is a wonderful tip for ALL researchers - you just don't know what you'll find by REPEATING some of your research from time to time - it might just open up a new avenue of research for those brick walls and give you a chance to update sources and proof of connections. We can ALL learn!

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  3. I can totally relate Jill. In my earlier years of researching, I copied without checking data and made mistakes, which I now see copied on many trees so feel guilty. I did send messages to others initially but gave up.

    Then there are other times when my information is different to everybody else but I have the certificates to prove that mine is the correct information! Majority Rules????...........not always!

    Now I rarely look at others trees, unless it could solve a brickwall.

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  4. Thanks Jill your post resonates with me - i now never copy dsta unles i check them out for truth

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  5. Thanks Jill your post resonates with me - i now never copy dsta unles i check them out for truth

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  6. More than anything I think what you've done here shows genealogical and research courage...admitting a mistake, correcting it and sharing the amendment. Congrats!

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  7. No courage Pauleen - it's better that I admit to my mistakes before others find them.

    We learn through our mistakes Pauleen. I just hope that those who copy my data check it and let me know of they find errors.

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