I agree with the posting that one should look at the original record to see what you see. Sometimes you have to be a family member to see the correct names, etc. I recently was researching my husband's Huggan line and was trying to find/confirm the maiden name of a person who married a Huggan descendant. The Huggan descendant was James Patterson, his mother was Isabella Huggan. There is an indexed record for the marriage of Marion Walt to James Huggan at familysearch.org. She was a widow. The parents were listed at Stephen B. Walt and the mother as Sarah Walt. You can see right away that this seems strange. No original was available online so I would have had to order a microfilm to see it. I tried unsuccessfully to trace Marion as a Walt. I did find her and James in the 1901 Canadian census however. The marriage record gave her place of birth. The 1901 census gave her exact birth date. With that data I put in a search with given names only and her birth year and place at Ancestry.com. The family I came up with that made a perfect match had the surname Netherly. I found a tree at Ancestry.com that gave data about Marian, "Minnie" Netherly. It was private but I decided to attempt to contact the owner anyway. To my surprise and pleasure, the owner of this tree responded and gave me sufficient data so that I could confirm that Netherly was indeed the maiden name of my James Patterson's wife. Without the indexed records, it would have taken me perhaps years to figure out the maiden name. I still do not know if the indexer was incorrect or if the original records was in fact wrong with the surnames of the parents, but bit by bit and piece by piece, I made great progress. I keep this quote on my desk by President Spencer W. Kimball. "We will move faster if we hurry less." I have commented on this quote before but I repeat it to myself every day now. I feel strongly that the Lord prefers a correct offering of our ancestors connections over a rushed unproven one. We should prove what we can now and what we cannot confirm at this point in time will be revealed to at some future date in some way that the Lord will provide. Nancy Ann Scott

Several years ago, I was working with records from Arran Island in Scotland for a group of ancestors who had immigrated to New Brunswick before continuing to the US. There was a male child with the right name born at the right time period at the right farm name, but the wrong father's given name. When the family appears in Canadian censuses with the rest of the children by right names and ages, the right father & mother's names and ages correct, and this boy is there--right age and name. I discussed with a friend who is a professional genealogist specializing in that area of the world, my suspicion that minister or clerk had written in the wrong given name for the father accidentally when the child was christened. She looked over the various censuses and church records I'd collected, and she told me that I had convinced her. I decided that we can all make mistakes, even the guy that made the original record. I don't automatically assume that the record keeper was in error, and certainly not every time what I'm looking at doesn't agree with what I think it should say. But they were also human and could make mistakes just as easily as I. I really find myself wondering if scanned, cleaned up records should be the only things we have access to when things are indexed. While it might speed up the work, how does that help if the one editing the scanned version misinterprets something and changes the name to something else? I wish we were still going to be able to access the original stuff once it's on line. (And no, not all of us can afford to visit Salt Lake, or hire a researcher there.) I've already dealt with a family where someone back in the 20s or 30s took an author's word for the parents of a family were one set of people and did Temple work for them without verifying it in original records. The author got the mother's name wrong and so the husband and kids were all sealed to the wrong mother (whom I have yet to prove even existed...at least by that name.) And when I tried to submit to have them sealed to the right mother, Salt Lake at that time assumed it was an entirely different family and insisted on doing everyone's work over again. That at least has become fixable now in *new.familysearch.org.* Karen On Fri, Apr 27, 2012 at 10:17 AM, Nancy Scott <[email protected]> wrote: > I agree with the posting that one should look at the original record to see > what you see. Sometimes you have to be a family member to see the correct > names, etc. > > > > I recently was researching my husband's Huggan line and was trying to > find/confirm the maiden name of a person who married a Huggan descendant. > The Huggan descendant was James Patterson, his mother was Isabella Huggan. > There is an indexed record for the marriage of Marion Walt to James Huggan > at familysearch.org. She was a widow. The parents were listed at Stephen > B. Walt and the mother as Sarah Walt. You can see right away that this > seems strange. No original was available online so I would have had to > order a microfilm to see it. > > > > I tried unsuccessfully to trace Marion as a Walt. I did find her and James > in the 1901 Canadian census however. The marriage record gave her place of > birth. The 1901 census gave her exact birth date. With that data I put in > a search with given names only and her birth year and place at > Ancestry.com. > The family I came up with that made a perfect match had the surname > Netherly. I found a tree at Ancestry.com that gave data about Marian, > "Minnie" Netherly. It was private but I decided to attempt to contact the > owner anyway. > > > > To my surprise and pleasure, the owner of this tree responded and gave me > sufficient data so that I could confirm that Netherly was indeed the maiden > name of my James Patterson's wife. > > > > Without the indexed records, it would have taken me perhaps years to figure > out the maiden name. > > > > I still do not know if the indexer was incorrect or if the original records > was in fact wrong with the surnames of the parents, but bit by bit and > piece > by piece, I made great progress. > > > > I keep this quote on my desk by President Spencer W. Kimball. "We will > move > faster if we hurry less." I have commented on this quote before but I > repeat it to myself every day now. I feel strongly that the Lord prefers a > correct offering of our ancestors connections over a rushed unproven one. > We should prove what we can now and what we cannot confirm at this point in > time will be revealed to at some future date in some way that the Lord will > provide. > > > > Nancy Ann Scott > > > > > > > Please send the one word message SUBSCRIBE or UNSUBSCRIBE to > [email protected] > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' > without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > -- Finding ancestors is like eating potato chips--you can't stop with just one!