Category: TIPS

52 Ancestors: Prompt 9 – Conflicting Clues

In family history research it is common to come across conflicting information about an ancestor. This information can come from family members sharing stories or from the actual records we find. Here are some steps to take to resolve those conflicting pieces of information. These steps are especially for an ancestor that you’ve done as detailed as possible of a search for records.

Start out with knowing what specifically you are wanting to find once you resolve the conflict. Is there conflicting information on the birth date of an ancestor? Knowing specifically what your research question is will help you better look at the sources you have already gathered. When did John Mohney, husband of Jennie Shingledecker and father of Beatrice Mohney, die?

Gather all the information on this ancestor that is conflicting. I recommend if you haven’t created research notes on this ancestor, this could be a good time to start. These notes should be in chronological order. They will help show any conflicting information. You can of course start those later and just write notes on the conflicting information. A spreadsheet could be a way to visualize the conflicting information if working at the computer is helpful in your research.

Next, look at where each piece of information came from. The simplest way to look at this is to ask whether the person who gave the information on the record was an eye witness to the event. While there may be errors even from eye witnesses (like a family member of the deceased filling out the death record and giving the wrong information for parents), looking at all the evidence you have and where it came from will help you know whether you can trust that the information in a piece of evidence is correct or not, in many cases. An obituary (unless written in advance by the deceased) while helpful is often not written by someone who was an eyewitness to the person’s whole life. Evaluating the records can give you clues on whether you can fully trust a source.

You’ve evaluated each piece of evidence to see if you’ve found a source that was from an eye witness. Is a source you are looking at an index or an actual scan of the original document? You’re also looking at things like ages, names (spellings, etc), and locations and making sure they are similar to other facts that you have. If your ancestor only lived in Michigan and you find a marriage record in South Dakota, it is highly likely that the South Dakota record is not your ancestor unless other records give evidence of your ancestor being in South Dakota around that time.

My research question in the second paragraph above, “When did John Mohney, husband of Jennie Shingledecker and father of Beatrice Mohney, die?” This was a research question I had about my maternal grandmother’s father. The family didn’t know when he died. Census records noted my great grandmother as widowed. Marriage records for some of my great aunts said that their father was dead. These records showed a picture that my great grandfather died after the 1920 Census and before the 1930 Census. But based on family rumors about there being a second wife I was able to find his death record. He had not died in the 1920s. He had died in 1945 in Minnesota. So it ended up that he was dead to my great grandmother and their kids back in Michigan, but he went on living with his second wife and their children in Minnesota.

In many cases you will be able to figure out which piece of information is the correct one. Other times you’ll get a close to the answer. But there will be times where you won’t be able to resolve the conflicting information and you won’t be able to confirm the information you are looking for. This process will at least help you evaluate your sources and figure out other areas where you could search that you may have overlooked.

Sources & Suggested Links
https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Evaluate_the_Evidence
https://www.legacytree.com/blog/evaluating-genealogical-evidence
https://www.familysearch.org/en/blog/how-to-successfully-apply-the-genealogical-proof-standard
When Genealogy FACTS DON’T AGREE: Correlating Evidence in Your Family History
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8VyNdPQYQE

Finding Mistakes In Your Research

I was chatting with a client about the research I am doing and she mentioned an aunt that was not listed in what I have found so far. I was confused and wondered if it was a bonus aunt like a lot of families have. Nope. Not just a bonus aunt. Definitely her great grandparents biological child. I had worked on that line months ago and got complacent with my research notes. The aunt that I had missed was added to the research notes properly and I began to find more information about her.

This is definitely a reminder to always make sure when making your research notes you note exactly what you see in the document and don’t base it off of transcription done by other people if you can help it. Write out all that you see and compile the information separately.

One way to compare census records over time. These are especially helpful with pre-1850 Census records, but they can also be helpful with census after that as well. There are several spreadsheets that people have made to compare census records. One that I have recently found was shared by Dawn Bingaman over at Ancestor Roundup.

In this document you can list each census record by year and compare ages and other details that might be unclear otherwise. I likely would have seen my error above if I had been using a document like this. It is especially helpful for families with a large amount of children.

Dawn’s document can be found at her blog post here: https://ancestorroundup.com/census-comparison-worksheet-revisited/

It is ok to make mistakes when doing research. The important thing is finding ways to ensure you don’t make the same mistake in the future. And it is great that other researchers have already created tools to make our research easier.