Texas Gen wrote: > John wrote: > >> In my experience the trees you find at Ancestry.com aren't any more >> reliable or better cited than the ones at the LDS site. >> > > I don't mean to diminish the efforts of those who want to share their > research on Ancestry, but I agree with you. When I am absolutely certain > that the tree has an error, I write a [I hope] gracious Post-It to the > relevant page. I thank them for sharing their research, and then mention > the different information that I have and its source. Sometimes the author > makes the correction, sometimes not. Sometimes the author makes the > correction, citing me and my own source(s), which is considerate. > > Unfortunately we get erroneous information and pass it around so much that > it is finally taken as gospel because it appears in so many places. > > Regards, > > Donna > Yes, it gets passed on by people who are 'doing genealogy' and gathering names of people who may or may not be their ancestors. I tried to help someone to trace her lineage this past summer back to the 1700s where one man appeared having 2 sets of parents! I spent weeks winding my way through films of parish records ordered through LDS to try to sort out the problem. I also looked in the Ancestral File to see what was going on only to find that 24 people had submitted names and lineage for that particular family. I gave up when the person I was trying to help said: (of the 24 submissions): "I guess I'll go with this one, it looks the most likely one. I know her, she has done a lot of work on our "family genealogy". I protested to no avail. In some way, it is likely that all the submissions will find their way on to Ancestry also. This is an example of the 'desire' to get one's genealogy 'done' at any cost. > Lorna