John, I would take the information and use it as a guide and try to prove / confirm it yourself. For my example: I have family that is available in many different family trees on Ancestry from several different people. But they have all, in my opinion, entered information from a compiled genealogy book - so if someone was missed in the original book, everyone misses the information in their "own" tree. Of course they don't make any references to their source(s). I agree, I don't think someone would purposely enter incorrect information... well, maybe... but they may enter whatever they believe to be true without checking. (It is terribly satisfying to fill in a bunch of generations with names and dates.) It's very frustrating, I know. My two cents. Trish ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Ruther" <chicagojohn@comcast.net> To: <POLAND-ROOTS@rootsweb.com> Sent: Sunday, October 12, 2008 7:06 PM Subject: [POLAND] A Questioin of what to believe. > This is not a question about Poland or the Polish; it is a question about Genealogy in general. If that is not appropriate for this forum, then please, by all means delete this message. > > My Question is simply this: When do you believe or not believe what you find on Ancestry.com? > > In addition to trying to trace my own Polish Roots, I have been working to trace the heritage and lineage of my wife, Gayle's English ancestors. Very little is known about her Father's family and all of the family members who may know something are long gone. > > We have some bits and pieces of information with some names and dates. One of those names was of a Mary Ann Cornell. She married a Charles Ryder and when I went into Ancestry.com I found posted in their section called ONE WORLD TREE a whole host of information dating back hundreds of years; work that I assume some other genealogist performed. The information was posted in 2001 and the "contact eMail address" is no longer viable. > > On the whole, the information looks valid; oh, there are some obvious errors, such as incorrect dates of birth and such, but mainly it looks like an excellent resource. My question is simply, how can a subscriber know that the information someone else can upload to Ancestry is, as far as they know, truthful and a good effort at accuracy has been employed? That someone is not having fun at ancestry.com's expense and loading a "Family Tree" with bogus information. > > I understand that some information that individuals put on line can be incorrect, that is not what I am talking about. Honest mistakes I would believe will happen, but what about out and out fraud. Does Ancestry have a "policing action" in their organization or do you simply take it on faith that only people of good will enter data into Family Trees? > > John > ********************************* > Need to contact the list manager? Write to Marie at Poland-Roots-admin@rootsweb.com > ---------------------------------- > Discussion of Polish food, culture, and customs are welcome on the list as long as the discussion stays pertinent to the topic of this list: researching our Polish roots. > ---------------------------------- > Browse the list's archives here: > http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index?list=poland-roots > Search the list's archives here: > http://archiver.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/search?aop=1 > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to POLAND-ROOTS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message