Genealogy overoad... brain smoldering....

[cessna152towser]

That's cool - Welsh, Irish, Scottish and Northumbrian ancestry.
I know a lot about my mother's side, going back over 300 years, but still to trace my father's ancestry.

[arrogcow]

Just remember to take anything you find on Ancestry.com with a grain of salt. My mother is doing our geneology, and doens't regard anything as real unless she has evidence in her hand. Consequently, she has found many cases where Ancestry is wrong.

Adam

[davedove]

Just remember to take anything you find on Ancestry.com with a grain of salt. My mother is doing our geneology, and doens't regard anything as real unless she has evidence in her hand. Consequently, she has found many cases where Ancestry is wrong.

Adam

I agree. These sites are a good place for direction and clues, but nothing is guaranteed unless you have documentation.

[CactusJack]

Just remember to take anything you find on Ancestry.com with a grain of salt. My mother is doing our geneology, and doens't regard anything as real unless she has evidence in her hand. Consequently, she has found many cases where Ancestry is wrong.

Adam

I agree with this also, But the best part for me was that I found a long lost cousin and have been able to connect and with her help have found that my great great gandmothers side has scottish roots to the Campbells and Blairs

[Don Patrick]

Just remember to take anything you find on Ancestry.com with a grain of salt. My mother is doing our geneology, and doens't regard anything as real unless she has evidence in her hand. Consequently, she has found many cases where Ancestry is wrong.

Adam

I agree to a certain extent. Unfortuneately, some have placed family trees with incorrect but perhaps with well intentioned information on quite a few sites including the Latter Day Saints site. But having said that, even information provided via source documents or objects can be just as faulty. Tombstones are considered a source object, but I've found those with incorrect dates and even mispelled names when compared to birth certificates. Some tombstones are not placed until years after the person's death. My Father placed my Grandmother's tombstone seventeen years after she died. The birth date he recorded for her doesn't agree with her birth certificate.

Birth Certificates can be another problem. Especially in light of delayed birth certificates. Mispelled names and incorrect information also apply here. I recently found one with an incorrect surname on it. The receipenant was apparently allowed to provide their own choice of surnames.

Census records are a really nice source document. ... but I had one ancester, where his birth State changed on each census record. Quite a few others where their birth State were random. Ages as well. Names can be commonly mispelled. Gattis was spelled Gaddis on many census records for the same person. All of the other census information matched to a 'T', including the family location. I've found Reed, spelled as Reid, Read, Reede, Rede, among other variations.

I've learned to consider all information. Looking to see how much of it matches my information, if there is sufficent matching, I embrace it on a temporary basis. ...and use it to follow leads.

I have other genealogy friends who are apauled by my approach. They require every 't' to be crossed and every 'i' to be dotted. I believe that approach is very scientific and very accurate, but also know they may fall short of their goal and may never trace their ancestors. To this day, some of them refuse to accept the Gaddis census records mentioned earlier, as Gattis census records.

One thing I've found - genealogy can be exciting and very rewarding.

[Oldhiker]

DNA testing can be a good tool to Prove your genealogy.