Genealogy Chat

Jonesey - I have to point out that the UK does not have a centralized system of BMD registration, nor a uniform set of access rules (nor a uniform of marr laws). It's true the UK is more centralized than the USA, but it's really only because the UK is smaller, consisting of 3 jurisdictions, rather than 50+.

The UK model - that BMDs were a concern only of the individual countries - a distinction that was preserved during the Acts of Union, was exported to the individual colonies, and retained by them during their union.

Even when the union of colonies was under the control of the UK parliament, they gave the right to the former colonies, now renamed provinces in Canada and states in Oz. E.g., the British North America Act (effectively Canada's first constitution) gives the provinces exclusive jurisdiction for "Generally all matters of a merely local or private nature in the province" [Sect 92.16]. I presume this held for S Africa too.

Hi all

I'm a great believer in "more is good" approach. The more information that is available to researchers the better. With that said however, you MUST always be aware that not all of the data published will be 100% correct and verified. I ALWAYS take the view that what I see on these Public Trees has the possibility of being correct but also has the possibility of being incorrect. I scan these trees in case some-one may have a link to a missing ancestor. Even if they are not 100% correct there might be something in what they have posted that will give me a clue as to where to search next. It is up to me to then do a follow up search and verify this information. In the past I have found people that have eluded me for some-time because of this.

However, there are many, many people out there who take everything they see as the truth and that is how mistakes are propagated throughout the Genealogy community in the World.

David

My best one is finding on an Ancestry tree that my grandmother had unexpectedly given birth to a son when she was aged 5 years!. As I'm the only direct descendant who has been alive for over 50 years & the sheer impossibility of the birth (even given the same name in the tree as my grandfather ) I still have been unable to get the perpetrator to change her tree, which is of course, now copied to the U.S. Canada, N.Z, U.K. & Australia.

There is going to be some really screwed up people some day!




:-0 :-0

The trouble with the "more is good" approach is that when a tree or a section of a tree has been filched and simply added...is that the inaccuracies in one are multiplied..and a lot of people who do this are not actually that bothered about how accurate the information is........it looks good and therefore it is good.........to be able to show many thousands of "relatives"..........was just looking at another Thread on which there appear to many hundreds of people descended from Eleanor of Aquitaine.......hah bleedin' ha.......maybe, just maybe..one person was clever enough, and lucky enough to research properly and meticulously..a massive task....but only one..the rest have been filched!
I am aware that hundreds of thousands of people ARE descended from mediaeval Royalty..particularly Edward III........but only a minute few can prove it, and they are not common or garden Joe Bloggs like you and I.
Pelo..I am already screwed up..I think i'm descended from Hiawatha..or was it Florence Nightingale??? lol

By the way NOBODY is descended from Florence Nightingale..........

Derek.(HI karen xx yes its me!)

If you are given a possible link on a public Ancestry tree - on the Overview page bottom right it lists their sources (BMD, censuses etc) which can be followed up. Often however such a source is described as being another Ancestry tree, which if you follow up all too often doesn't give a further source. But don't damn Ancestry trees en masse, there is a lot of helpful information there and I have been able to fill in a lot of background information and follow up new links

;-)

I still reckon I have the wackiest one of all. My oldest sister m to a man who was b 176 yrs before her own father was b. And she had a horde of children before her parents (or even grandparents, or gt grandparents) were born. Quite a lot of the idiot trees have our parents and grandparents and gt grandparents in them with their y.o.b. and yet the tree owners have not noticed that the dates 'do not compute'. Grrr, innumerate idiots.

florance florance who :-0 :-0 :-0 :-0

sally w