Genealogy Chat

Kate, I've got 6 kids baptised as a batch, and that's in the early 20th Century! So how old is the oldest of those! And it isn't in some rural backwater, Holy Trinity Wealdstone 1905 which was a rapidly industrialising township!

I did "look for names and dates that match those your looking for or already have" and found a person researching my family although we are not connected. Doh!!!!! Joy

Hi all, It isn't a case of not worrying, or that some people can't spell. This site is supposed to be a Genealogical one where information can be freely shared and Trees compared for likely links. How can we possibly do so if I am looking for Billy Wilkins 1836 and all the other Billy Wilkins on the site are Year 0? Or there is a Billy Willkins who I will never find because someone MISTRANSCRIBED IT and GR do not have the necessary search facility. I put that in capitals because we are always so quick to denounce those damned transcribers who can't read Census Forms, yet you seem equally quick to defend such lack of accuracy if it is a member. Surely this is not too much to ask that we all provide enough accurate information so that the Site can fulfil its stated function. Or else why be here in the first place? Jim

Hi All, Just thought I'd add my two penn'orth in! I am guilty of being a 'Gedcom uploader', and responsible for many names with no dates, because all I have are baptism dates, and it is ' a hassle to add indiviuals manually' when half your ancestors seem to marry people already in the tree. Until GC/GR do something about this, it will always be a hassle, because you are continually duplicating names! They have been promising to rectify this for as long as I can remeber (in my 2nd yr of membership) This is the only site I know where you can't 'link' families, when they marry! Unlike others, I have come across baptisms, many years later than the births. My gr-gr-grandmother was born in 1858 and baptised in 1875! Her sister was bn 1838 and baptised 1858! The other 6 weren't baptised and none of their births were registered. Guess work isn't really acceptable, so by uploading, you can bypass the mandatory fields, which suits me better. All that said, I have stopped updating my tree, at each stage where I have to duplicate someone, I don't go any futher with branch. The alternative is to delete and upload a renewed tree, then I would have to work my way through over 4,000 names, to see which ones have no birth info. Not a chance!!! I'm also not a fan of born 46, 146 etc. Debbie

Hi Jim Sorry but I don't see the problem - surely you just look for names and dates that match those your looking for or already have? Many people have been serious about genealogy for years but are new to this site or online genealogy in any form. In my opinion anyone tracing their family history is a genealogist . Some of us can spell with ease and some of us can't - we all have different ideas about how things should be done and need to accept that others might be different from us: David

Jim does enjoy life. Joy

We are all different and the art of getting on in life is called acceptance - stop trying to understand why people do or do not do things and just accept that that is the way it is. It is less frustrating . Accepting differnce and embracing individuality is the way forward. Take some deep breaths Granpa Jim and ignore evryone elses failaure and just enjoy life.Your tree will grow much quicker for it. Regards Tracey

Quite an interesting one this, it is so easy not to contribute all information that you should. Now take this example. Use Family Tree Maker for Windows. Many of the entries on my tree I do not know the precise birthdate. However I do know the date of baptism. When you enter this into FTW and subsequently generate Gedcom, it throws away the date of baptism! I am now updating my tree with the assumption that the year and month of baptism were also the year and month of birth but of course we all know that is not necessarily true! With 415 individuals in my tree is taking some time to update all these fields, and then of course periodically you have to delete the tree and re-upload it. I'll get there in the end though. Andy in Hemel.

PPS Since then, Jim, I solely have fun with 'stirring' (as you know), try to help if possible with tips, and participate on threads if I think I may have something useful / helpful / friendly to offer. I do not use the site for family history research any more though after that nasty episode. It spoiled one of my major hobbies. And the site owners know this. Joy

PS I agree with all you say, Jim, about accuracy, as far as possible, sharing, and connecting. Joy

Jim - in case you, and some others, don't know why I have only two names on my 'tree' on this site (those of my husband and myself) - it is because of somebody whom I named as a 'people taker' a while ago. The person was taking my family and researching them, even though we are not connected. He was asked to remove them by the site owners. He also had names of living people without their permission, and the site owners asked him to remove them too. Prior to this, I had direct ancestral family back a few generations for both of us. Joy

Jim's original post wasn't about lack of contacts, but entries lacking basic data or useless (e.g. no century in birth year or year zero). It is a shame in a way that the site allows gedcom uploads if it doesn't reject those which lack the data in the fields which are compulsory if entering manually. It's not that much hassle to add persons manually, after all, if you are adding a couple a week you're probably doing quite well from the research point of view.. I've got a few hundred (haven't checked recently) all manually entered and therefore containing as much and as accurate info. that I have to hand. Alternatively upload once, fill in the missing fields and then update manually. I still see the purpose of the site as enabling connections to be made and information shared (even if the name change dilutes this). It is annoying to receive an enquiry from someone who has only themselves or half a dozen names on here only to find that they have a tree at home with hundreds. If that info. had been on here we would both have had the chance to make the connection, thereby doubling the chances.

If I don't know the wife's surname I enter it as 'unknown'. I apologise if anyone is searching for a family with the surname 'unknown' but somehow I don't think I'm saying sorry to many of you. It's quite funny if you check out the name on the 1881 Census. One family had five lodgers all called unknown unknown!!!!!

I guess re the spelling of place names, we have to remember that not all the contributors are from the UK, thus when you get something like Ilford, Sussex (instead of Essex) we have to appreciate these people may never have been to the UK. Re Baptisms, I have found them taking place en masse within a family when all were adults. I understand that quite often a vicar would refuse to marry a couple if the whole family were not baptised first! Makes it a bit of a problem when you see someone apparently aged 1 getting married though!

Hello Jim I have just found this thread and I thought I'd add my 'two pennyworth'! I too get annoyed when incomplete dates are shown. I understood that the ones with no dates or birthplace were from Gedcoms, but surely they don't have incomplete birthdates! I sympathise with bad spelling (Isle of White) but accept that not everyone can spell correctly. I have found a couple of entries for names in my tree listing the birthplace as Chipshop, Devon. Can someone please show me a map of this place? When entering a wife where I don't know the maiden name, I put the surname in brackets, and change it once I have the correct information. I know this may confuse some people, and I apologise for that, but I couldn't think of any other way to enter these rellies. Sue PS Good to hear from you again Vera :o) Hope you are well.

Hello Jim and Ann in Glos Just like old times on GC (Yes I said GC!) Haven't been on for months but seems like the old times, same old problems. Tip - For a married lady with no maiden name I add her as 'Mary Mrs' for her Christian name on the same line then her husband's surname e.g Cooper on the surname line. On the list it looks like Cooper Mary Mrs Regards to all the old GC members from Vera in Manchester. EOM

Funny, I was just thinking that the info on this site is rapidly starting to resemble That Other Site, about which I frequently complain - inaccuracies, vagueness, downright lies and my own particular HATE - endless duplications! And couldnt GR somehow flag entries, to show that their Submitters havent visited this site for, say, 6 months, or had not renewed their sub. At least that way, we wouldnt waste time following up dead cold information.

When I have a baptism date - and it isn't something daft like the day before the marriage - then I put born circa baptism date. I haven't yet found a baptism that wasn't within two years of birth, but then again I have only just got into the 1790s. As for requests on the Records Office boards, if I see one more 'Info wanted on the surname Smith' or 'I need a 1784 census lookup' I will take Jim's spoon and beat the poster over the head with it.

Yes I did enjoy reading your thread Grampa Jim, especially Natalie's comment about her tree being small and perfectly formed!

And my final gripe of the day. GR claims to have over 17000000 names. How many of them are duplications or even quintuplications? Jim with a BIG SPOON P.S. Thank you all for visiting my Thread. I hope you all had a good time. XX Jim