some of that "merging" was done, not by the original submitter, but by people actually working at the Family History Library, trying to "clean up" the files (and I believe some of it was done by volunteers who might have gotten in a hurry) do please recall, that much of the information submitted to the Temple has not been checked, nor the sources checked, for the original idea of those submissions, was to assure baptism and sealing into the LDS church for any possible ancestors -- a very simplified explanation of a tenet of that faith (you can read far more about it at the LDS website) so the standards of "proof" of those submissions is not what a contemporary professional genealogist would use ... there is much correct information in the Ancestral Files and the Pedigree Research Files and in the IGI ... but the accuracy can range from 5% to 99% ... the most nearly accurate files are those transcriptions of Vital Records files (you can tell them by the IGI source code starting with C or with M) but even there, you will find errors, sometimes they are in the original record (person recording the info couldn't hear, misunderstood, misspelled, got distracted, or was lied to; record was burned or smudged or torn or water-spotted or eaten by bugs ... et cetera ... also, some of our ancestors either could not read or write, never knew how the name was spelled in the first place, or figured that "everyone knew who they were anyway"; they didn't expect us, hundreds of years later, to be looking at those records ... and some of them spoke with unusual accents for the region, or did not speak English at all ... so, for example, "Galbreath" turned into "Gilbreth"; "Kuehne" turned into "Keeny", and "Thomasine" turned into "Tumsyon" then the transcriber may have introduced errors through misreading or finger-fumbling ... so don't lay all the blame on the original contributor -- almost all of them have done the best they knew how, in good faith -- sometimes with a bit more exuberance than we'd like ... Candy (still finding errors and incorrect linkages within my own database -- it never ends .... ) ----- Original Message ----- From: "Helen Ware" <helenware@attbi.com> To: <ROCKINGCHAIR-ROOTS-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: June 10, 2003 03:02 PM Subject: Re: [RC-ROOTS] doldrums > Hello, > I read every post and now I am interested in this subject. > I have also found people who put two families not related at all together > just by finding a male with same name and approx. birthdate and went way > back on wrong line. Now it is sealed and on line on Family Search, how can > this happen if not proven lines? The other man who she used ,was a Dr. and > very wealthy man with a big family and even a monument to him here in > Massachusetts. I have always wanted to somehow correct it but do not know > how to go about it, any suggestions? I wrote to the woman who did the > research but was never contacted by her. > This week I have been contacted about two family lines that had at least one > child missing, one the eldest and on the other the youngest and they ask > where I got the family info. > I am happy to share with anyone if they are not rude and question my info., > please be nice when asking for my data. > I never enter anything unless I have proven it, I still use my family group > sheets and enter in pencil until proven, then I put data into computer > program. > After 33 years I still get a big thrill when I find proof of any of my > lineages, I would never enter doubtful data and have it "sealed" or used by > others. > Any comments or ideas out there?. > Helen