I have been researching my family history since I was a child.
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| Me, about age 11 |
I first began researching my last name, and was enthralled by the Scottish history. I envisioned myself a "Highland Lass" wearing my family's tartan.
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| Robertson Modern Plaid, from google images |
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| Robertson Ancient Hunting Plaid, from google images |
It was many years later that I discovered that my Scottish Grandfather was Ukrainian, and the last name had been randomly chosen for reasons I still don't know.
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| newly married Clyde & Mary (nee Thomson) Robertson (my grandparents) December 1940, Granville Street, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada |
In 2013 I was having surgery that would require a 6 week recovery time with lots of rest. I am not a restful person. I decided to purchase an Ancestry World Deluxe membership to assist me with remaining stationary. After 6 weeks of screen time I had made amazing progress in tracking back.
I went back to work feeling super accomplished and an expert in genealogy.
My Ancestry membership remained dormant for several months.
On a day off from work I decided to record some details from notes I had taken while talking to my grandmother. I had a bit of a hard time adding the details because I had created some errors in my collecting from all those trees. Simply adding people to my tree from the Ancestry Hints had resulted in children married to their parents, children assigned to the wrong parents, children born after mother's deaths, and more. I sat looking at the mess of my tree, and realized that I had made some serious rookie mistakes.
My 6 week recovery was successful, but all the research I had done was not. My tree was a mess. I fixed a few people, but then overwhelmed signed out of my Ancestry account leaving the paid membership to go dormant again.
I signed up for an online course from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland through FutureLearn. I learned about proper research techniques & how to conduct a reasonable exhaustive search. I began trying to fix the errors in my tree. I made slow progress because there was a lot of errors.
One day I opened my email to discover I had received an inbox message from a fellow Ancestry member. In reading the message I realized this person was a distant relative
The message was not very friendly. This person was very upset with an error in my tree that intersected with his tree. The message is below with private information redacted.
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| Message I received from a distant relative |
I immediately went to my tree, and considered how to fix the issue. I looked at his tree, and mine. I removed the second husband after confirming my only source was another Ancestry Tree.
I didn't reply to the message. I deleted the message. I made my tree private, and not findable deciding that I would make it public again after I corrected the errors.
With my new found research techniques I decided that fixing my old tree would be too hard. I deleted my tree, and began a new one.
Receiving that email was discouraging.
I wonder how things would have worked out if he would have reached out in kindness. I wonder if we would be collaborating in our shared research on our shared branches.
In the years since I received that email I have found errors in the trees of others. When that happens I reach out in a friendly manner asking for their source.
Who knows - maybe they are right, and I am wrong as shown in the amount of adoptees and NPEs (non parental events) I have discovered in my tree.
Keeping it friendly when seeking clarification!
This is why I search -
Cause ...
You can pick your friends, but you can't pick your family you know!
***Any errors are my own. Please send me any updates or corrections via the comments at the bottom of this blog post***
Links:
Amy Johnson Crow, 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge
https://www.amyjohnsoncrow.com/
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