Sunday, May 31, 2009

Guilty as charged, I clicked and clicked and clicked some more

In recent past, began looking in 1700's for some family I have not researched.

One stop, World Tree entries at Rootsweb/Ancestry.com (Ya I know, not the best place to look, but I look anyway, for hints.)

Found my man, oh, boy, did I ever.

Several sets of entries where data matched exactly. One set in particular really got my dander up. Ancestor was listed as 149 years old at time of death, so born ca 1740 and died ca 1849.

EXCUSE MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE?????

We all know what happened, someone put their family tree online, with bad info. Now, lets give them the benefit of the doubt, that 1849 is a typo. Be kind, let it be a typo.

More researchers come along and find the line and click and claim and connect to their own research. That is allowed on the sites. Is it a good idea, you be the judge. May work for you, does not work for MOI.

Anywhoooooooo, there were a LOT of entries with this 149 year old ancestor. I counted, there were at least 22 trees with the exact same data.

No, I did not click and claim and connect it, but, I did click. I typed up a note, where I kindly as I could, pointed out that it was not likely said ancestor died at age 149. Then, I clicked and copied and clicked and posted that same note to all 22 family trees. Yea, took a while.

So far, one response from a researcher that was happy I pointed that little age thing.

Guess one out of 22 is pretty good response.

Click, click, click!