Confused?
There are many reasons why we come across so much confusing, conflicting, and just plain strange information.
- Normal Mistakes: People make innocent or careless mistakes all the time. Typographical errors seem unavoidable, and they creep into everything. It’s also very easy to mis-read, mis-hear, or misunderstand information obtained from others, or to unthinkingly make assumptions that may not really be correct. Even information from “official” sources is often wrong because of these kinds of mistakes. (Census records are a good example.) We can defend against mistakes by proofreading our work, using the most reliable sources available, and double checking anything that seems questionable or unusual, or which is in conflict with reliable information.
- Spelling Problems: Spelling is not always easy. We usually expect a person to to spell his own name consistently, but our ancestors did not always do so. And people were truly terrible at spelling each other’s names. It doesn’t matter whether a document was personal, such as a letter or family Bible, or whether it was some kind of “official” record, such as a marriage license or property deed. Sometimes one person’s name can be found spelled several different ways within the same document. And, over a period of years, his name and his family members’ names may have been spelled many different ways, by many different people. Many of these spellings may not be obviously similar to our eyes. These problems can make it very difficult to clearly identify individuals.
- Bad Memory: Most of us think our memories are accurate, but this is often not the case. Without realizing it, people often mis-remember names and dates. Of course, people’s memories are often our best — or only — source for much genealogical information. Whenever possible, check with more than one source.
- Lies: One of the most common things people lie about is age. Both men and women want to appear younger and will shave a few (or many) years from their true age. People also add years to qualify for military service, get married, etc. People have often lied about when they were married, to conceal the fact that a child was conceived before the wedding. They also lie about the number of marriages they’ve had, children born out of wedlock, the cause of someone’s death, military service, jobs held, time spent in jail, and any number of other things, whether serious or trivial. All this creates conflicting information which may be confusing both during and after their lifetimes.
- Family Myths, Legends, and Traditions: Many things people believe about their families are not true. Some of the stories that are passed down through the generations started innocently enough, and perhaps were based on fact. But over time they have combined speculation, exaggeration, and bad memory to create beliefs that may be only partly true, or that may have no truth at all. For example, a family has the same last name as a famous person. They wonder if they are related to that person, and after a while they begin to believe they must be related to him. After a few generations, they are convinced they descended from him. In reality, they are only distant relatives, or not even related at all. Or, family stories over the years have exaggerated an ancestor’s military service until his descendants believe he was a great hero of the war, when in reality he didn’t see any action.
- Repeated Names: The same names tend to be frequently repeated within an extended family. Imagine a man named William who has sons named William, John, Robert, Samuel and Levi, a wife named Mary, and daughters named Mary, Alice and Elizabeth. The sons all marry, and each one names a son William after their father. They also name some of their sons after each other, and they name their daughters after their mother and sisters. So now, in a single generation, we have Four or five cousins named William, all born within a few years of each other, all with siblings named John, Robert, Levi, Mary and Elizabeth, all living in the same county. Many of these people also have spouses with similar names, and of course they relentlessly repeat most of these names with their own children. It can be extremely difficult to figure out who is who.
- Recycled Names: Many of our ancestors followed the practice of re-using a dead child’s name. Because of the high infant mortality rate, some families had many children who died, and some used the same name several times. Modern people, who see that the same parents seem to have three or four children with the same name but different birthdates, often think this is a mistake, and assume that there was only one child with that name. But many people stubbornly used the same few names over and over again. They also gave children names that were confusingly similar. For example, they might have one son named John and another named Jonathan, a son named Simon and another named Simeon. Modern researchers may see this and think that John is just a nickname for Jonathan, or that Simeon is a misspelling of Simon. Sometimes that is true, but in other cases there really are two different siblings with very similar names.
- Nicknames: Most of us recognize Bill as a nickname for William, and we may know that Peggy can be a nickname for Margaret. (We just don’t know why.) But how many modern people recognize Polly as a nickname for Mary, or Patsy as a nickname for Martha? When we find a source that tells us a man was married to Mary, and another source that tells us he was married to Polly, we may think he had two wives, when in fact “Polly” was just Mary’s nickname. This is complicated by the fact that sometimes these names aren’t nicknames. Sally might be a nickname for Sarah, but it might just be a girl’s given name. And, of course, there are also odd nicknames that were used in a family that are even harder to recognize because they weren’t common.
- Marrying the Neighbors: Our ancestors didn’t have much opportunity to meet a lot of different people. Several generations were born, lived, and died in a very small area, often in the same small town. (Some of their descendants still live in that town.) They had a small pool from which to choose spouses, and often turned to close neighbors. It is common to see a group of siblings from one family marry a group of siblings from another family. Over a few generations, the same few families continue to marry each other. A hundred or more years ago, people did not share our modern disdain for the marriage of cousins, so we frequently see first and second cousins marrying each other over many generations. The names are constantly repeated and the family relationships, as well as individual identities, become very confusing.
- Geographical Confusion: The names of places can create a lot of misunderstanding. Over many generations, state, county, and city lines have been redrawn. A town that started in a particular county, colony, territory, or state may, without moving an inch, end up the county or state next door. Many places have divided, annexed, renamed, and sometimes physically relocated. And all too many places have similar names. Was great-aunt Erica born in Denmark, the well-known nation, or Denmark, a town in Maine? How many different places are named Washington, Springfield, or Green-something? And then there are all those abbreviations. They can be confusing, especially when people misuse them. (Is AK Arkansas or Alaska? When in doubt, spell it out!)
- Fraud: Unfortunately, people sometimes commit genealogical fraud. Often, this is done for some kind of financial gain; a large inheritance may be at stake, or a con man may find a way to bilk money from people by making them believe in an imaginary inheritance or a relationship to historical figures. There have been cases of people who were paid to perform genealogical research, but who simply invented family lines instead of doing the work. Sometimes people hope to gain prestige by joining a genealogical society; sadly, a few have lied in order to gain admission. All these frauds are likely to be discovered in time, but in the meantime they may have made their way into published works which then fall into the hands of innocent people. This is another reason why it is important to find reliable sources and to use more than one source whenever possible.
© 2005 Rosemary K. West