Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Research Rant!

I've been working on a project for a friend for awhile - part of the reason I'm short on about a dozen family updates. I am once again running into one of my pet peeves, inaccurate and undocumented family trees. Several are, I think, based on old and inaccurate research.

I thought I had a tie-in to George Washington through his grandfather, but after replying to a message board post, l learned otherwise. More recent research disproved the connection I thought I had made.

The subject has been mentioned in previous posts, but don't trust those circa 1880 -1920 [or so] genealogies. Some are correct, some not.

I got caught by the Lockwood genealogy back in my early research days. Brothers Richard and Edmund came to the colonies about 1630. The book credited Richard as being the progenitor of most of the American Lockwoods, but it was Edmund who turned out to be the progenitor. The book was one inaccuracy after another. A later genealogy on Edmund unraveled the mess.

The Hazen Genealogy misfired on a Dart-Douglas-Hazen marriage. Finding the correct information led to a Mayflower connection that a lot of people missed out on.

Use the early genealogies, but look for more current and documented sources. Let them be your guide, but not your chief source.

No comments:

Post a Comment