Genealogy Chat

Hi Georgina I got really excited when I thought I'd found records back to the 1500's. After a while I started checking and found that my GG Grandmother was a Mayes not a Mansfield which completey threw everything out. Now I don't accept anything unless I can verify or I am totally sure I can trust the person who provided the info. I always thing it's nice know anyway where the info was obtained - it all adds to the background story. Maggie

If he is genuine then he will be expecting you to ask for the sources. Take care it is not a con though.

Hi, Thank you all for your replies. I am definitely going to go back to him and ask his sources. I will try tactfullly i.e it might help me with other sides of my family. Many thanks for your responses. georgina

Ive had a similar incident and the person who id swapped details with did not mind me asking for details of his sources as I wanted to get copies of the sources myself... however i think really you can never take anything on blind faith as I did this with my fathers side of the family a couple of years ago and recently as I was going through it i suddenly realized that one of my reles wasn't even born when his children were someone had simply stuck his name in to keep the line going, and also I quickly realized that soneone had simply removed an "E" in the name and had borrowed someone elses tree! strange but true!

I totally agree. I am in the situation where I thought I was on the right track and was methodically tracing backwards through the generations. Recently I got in contact with a lady who shares my maiden surname (which is quite a rare one) and we also seem to share some rellies from the mid 1800s. The only problem is that we seem to disagree on the descendents of the rellies in the 1800s. One of us could be wrong so I am going back and properly checking sources, which I should have done as I went along. It makes a lot of sense therefore to do it now, while you are still in contact with the gentleman who gave you the info. It could save you wondering in the future. LYnne

I always douoble check whatever information I've been given. I also suggest to people I pass info onto to double check what I've done. It's very easy to make a simple slip of attaching someone to wrong parents or marrying off a dead person ect etc When you're knee deep in resarch and you're trying to add everything you can to your tree it's not that difficult to get distracted and slip up. Ask the gentleman for his sources so that you can keep complete records of where the information was found - you never know when you might have to stop and leave you searching for a few months and then come back to it and not have a clue where it all came from!!

A very kind gentleman contacted me and offered me information on the name I was researching. I had hit a brickwall and was really desparate for help. He had been researching my name for someone else and sent me everything he had. I was back to the 1760's but he has given me information on that line back to 1574. I don't like to question him on how he got the information as it seems ungrateful but do I now check it all. Georgina