What are the risks associated with Genealogy research?
I am working on a group project in my online class. Our group had to create a fictitious company with the purpose of organizing family reunions. I have been given the title of head of the genealogy research department in our fake company. My current task is to identify potential risks associated with conducting genealogy research. In other words, if this were a real research project, I would be hired by a family to conduct this research. So what are the types of problems that may arise when beginning my genealogy research for that particular family???
Tagged with: fake company • family reunions • fictitious company • genealogy research • group project
Filed under: Research
I am with Shirley.
Finding scandals and such is a common part of research. People might not like them, but they are facts and should not be hidden or altered.
The biggest "risk" is that of inaccurate information.. and today, most people wrongly assume that they can just punch in their name and find their family tree.
Genealogy isn’t difficult.. but anyone doing it, HAS TO UNDERSTAND the critical need for having proof/ original or reasonable documents to verify the work.
Assume for a minute that John Smith is either the son of James Smith, or his brother Jeremiah Smith. Assume dad died, and son John lives with his uncle/wife after dad’s death. UNLESS you find the record to say that the right parent is James and his wife, then you might claim Jeremiah is the dad..along with his wife. Since you want to take it further.. the WRONG WIFE is not related at all, and you might spend thousands of dollars, researching the ancestry of a woman who turns out to be the aunt.
Many people do careless work, and post it, without proof. Other people see it, and don’t want to do the work, and accept that which is incorrect . Worse than a virus.
From a business view.. if you don’t know a lot about research, many people will think it will only take you 5 hrs, and want to pay accordingly. GOOD research can take years to find ONE RECORD. You need to be able to define exactly what you do, and what the fee is. And if you spend 2 weeks looking for a wrong or non existant record.. you still have put labor out, that needs to be paid.
one more
People define family in different terms. If I am organizing a reunion, I want to find children (desc) of John Smith and his wife. Those are living people. Genealogy, on the other hand, is finding John’s BACKGROUND, meaning dead ancestors. Thus, you again have to make it clear what the goal is.
You might discover so called "skeletons in the closet" - relationships to people that may cause unwanted stress (i.e criminals), or could discover evidence of infidelity, adoption/etc.
The only real problem I can think of would be making a mistake in finding family members. Overlooking real family members, Identifying wrong people as members.
- You might find out that one of their forefathers was a criminal, something not everyone likes to know.
- You might stumble upon a foundling, whose mother left her child on some doorstep. In that case, you will be unable to get any further.
- The registers you would like to use for your research could have been destroyed in a war.
- You might end up in a foreign country, and all documents are in a language you do not understand.
- The name of one of your forefathers was John Smith, but about 10 John Smiths were born around the same time in the same city. Which one is the right one?
- On arrival in the US, many people got a more English sounding name. What was their original surname?
The first 3 gave excellent examples.
30 years ago I thought it was great that so many people were getting involved in genealogy as the more everyone learned there could be sharing.
However, the internet has left me horrified. Too many people think that family trees on the internet are absolutely correct and they think nothing of copying. A lot of people resent being copied but they have to understand they are asking for that when they put it out there.
Most of the family trees on the internet whether on a free site or one that you have to pay to subscribe to have no documentation or they have poor documentation such as someone else’s URL.
Because of the copying once someone puts an error out on the web it gets multiplied many times.
Some do not realize that quality genealogy means a verifiable family tree with documents, records, not seeing how many names you can put in your family tree.
One website, Genealogy.Com, use to encourage people to merge other people’s family tree into theirs so they can have more names. I don’t know if they still do that.
There is an advertisement for Ancestry.Com now running on TV. Ancestry.Com is probably the best site for the amount of original source records they have on line. So when the lady in the ad talks about fiinding her grandfather’s WWI draft registration card, she is talking about an original source documentaiton. But then when she talks about finding members of her family in family trees, this is misleading people thinking that is how to do their genealogy. Those trees are not submitted by some expert working for the website but by folks like us. A lot of them have copied what someone else has already posted and there are errors.
Edit: I might add even names that are not all that common can cause a problem as families in the past used the same names over and over. One of my great great grandfathers had an uncle, a brother, a son and a grandson named Zachariah Berry Jackson. Those probably weren’t the only 4. Probably his brother and his uncle had a Zachariah Berry Jackson also.
Another edit: I was just looking at a family tree on Ancestry.Com and found that my younger sister and myself are both dead. No date of death but we died in New Jersey. The only time either of us was in New Jersey was in the 1950s when we drove through it going and coming from New York. It is defintely us as it has correct birth information.
When you start digging into your family’s then along with name dates and all the other things we find, you have to be prepared for all the family secrets, which can be any thing from incest to murder.
Have fun
I’m doing that right now for my family. Its interesting how you can find a paper trail on the travels of your relatives.Here I thought they were country bumpkins that never traveled! If I had expected them to be in a particular place all this time…and now I see they were somewhere else…that could change your whole perspective and /or respect for a relative. I think its all fascinating. My image of ancestors in my family has certainly changed. They were quiet different in their youth! Like the person above suggested….I’ve also learned of a couple ‘indiscretions’
from a great grandfather and great uncle where each produced a child!
All the above is good.
Also, you might find a living illegitimate child who has the right to a share in the family fortunes.