Susan, Yes, fiction becomes fact quite often. I have had the same problem myself on other lines. That is why I only use on-line "personal" submissions as clues, but never as fact. I'll use the clues to point me in the direction of where I might find some facts to back them up in source documents. I had the case of finding some information on a FTM World Family Tree disk. It said my Rachel (Unknown) McGahen was the daughter of a Thomas Henry Smith. How wonderful. After 20+ years of searching I finally had her surname and her father. Her father's name came from a deed filed in Sandusky Co., OH for land sold in Ontario, Canada. Unfortunately, no one could come up with this mystery deed. I ended up searching in Ontario land records and located her father's will. He was actually "Henry" Smith. Also found the Ontario filing of the Sandusky deed which confirmed everything. I finally did get ahold of that Thomas Henry Smith deed. Due to the bad (fancy) script, the submitter mistook "Whereas" for Thomas. "Whereas Henry Smith late of the town of Whitby, Home District...." Many other errors like turning 2 hundred acres of land into 2 "thousand", etc. But, anyone searching the FTM site will think the real name is Thomas Henry, owner of 2,000 acres of land in Canada. Oh well. Dave Taft

At 03:55 PM 6/2/02 -0500, David W. Taft wrote: >But, anyone searching the FTM site will think the real name is Thomas Henry, >owner of 2,000 acres of land in Canada. > >Oh well. Indeed. On this same "Joseph Ellis" ... I've had several people tell me that Washington's father is named "James Ellis." In a printed transcription of the 1850 census, there is a James Ellis living near Washington and his brother. Because there was a JOSEPH Ellis living near Washington back in 1840 in Virginia, I went to the microfilm to confirm this James. It's not James. It's Joseph written shorthand. So ... along with the Joseph Ellis/Mary Rooney muddle, people now think Washington's father was JAMES. The joy of genealogy ... Susan