Singhals wrote: > You know, faking a pedigree is darn near as much work as researching > one. > > I've been trying to build a pedigree for a fictional character whose > ancestry as given involves Massachusetts, Wisconsin, and Washington > State. There are 4 surnames specified. > > I figured it would be a piece of cake, using WorldConnect, the > message boards, Familysearch's AF and PRF, and Ancestry and > Genealogy.com's GEDCOM depositories. I was wrong. Think I can find > any two of the surnames in the same place in the same decade? You don't have to go to that much trouble. If a surname is common you'll find it everywhere, and close to everywhere else. Marriages between people from different parts of a state were never unknown, and grew more frequent with time. New England families that moved west often intermarried with others who hailed from completely different parts of New England. This phenomenon has created some of my own toughest problems. Actually, it's probably best if your four surnames do *not* geographically coincide. That would effectively remove all chance of coincidence with any real family living or dead. For good measure you could also try falsifying every specific place, much in the manner of Jewett's Dunnet's Landing or Hardy's Casterbridge. Personally I have to wonder what sort of fiction is involved in the creation of this pedigree. One of the fundamental lessons for writing anything -- especially fiction -- is to avoid overwriting, for instance by including superfluous details and then agonizing over how to justify them. On this score, you can never fault Donald Lines Jacobus for overwriting. He would often write on how research for "a client" required a certain record or search method. Usually these case histories would extend no farther than the result of that specific search. Jacobus would often give no surname at all, and if he did he would be certain to make up a false one. A very brief sampling of this type of exposition will be found in _Genealogy as Pastime and Profession_, rev. ed. (Baltimore, 1968), chap. 17. > All of which gives me a great appreciation for those bogus medieval > pedigrees which are now being proven wrong. It takes talent to get > that close with no ready-access to records and still be wrong. ;) > > Cheryl <singhals@erols.com> I don't think too many professional medievalists would see the humor. We can be sure that bogus genealogists in any day aren't interested in what the records say. And "bogus" is not just a matter of getting facts wrong; it also involves deceiving the client and besmirching genealogists in general. Austin W. Spencer "Austin W. Spencer" <AustinWSpencer@cox.net>