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When I first started accumulating my own family history over 30 years ago, I would now consider my efforts to be "bad genealogy." I copied down hundreds (perhaps thousands) of family group records and incorporated them into my personal database. Since I was one of the earliest members of my particular ancestry to employ computers, much of what I compiled has survived in some form or another and come back to haunt me in the present day, sort of like Jacob Marley's Ghost.
Some of those who consider themselves to be genealogists do not know it when they see it or there wouldn't be so much of it around or so many constant comments about the problem. For some reason, when I think about this subject, I am reminded of the Mad Magazine comic strip Spy vs. Spy that started back when I was in high school. The question the comic strip poses is which of the two is the good spy and which is the bad spy? I also think it ironic that in a day and age when situational ethics are predominant, that anyone would base such an evaluation on their own supposed superiority. Obviously, those condemning someone for practicing "bad genealogy" do not consider themselves to be in that category.
I am further reminded of Exodus 2:14 and the question asked of Moses when he saw two "men of the Hebrews" fighting. He was asked, "Who made thee a prince and a judge over us?"
One of the issues I have written about from time to time, is the lack of objective standards in the entire area of genealogical research. There are no genealogical laws and no genealogical police to enforce them. That is not to say that there are not a plethora of genealogists out there (including myself) with opinions about the validity of other people's research efforts. Making this statement just points out the fact that all such judgments are personal and situational.
I am further reminded of an experience I had years ago. My wife and I were out looking to purchase a "new to us" used car. We were in a large used car lot and were being followed around by a particularly obnoxious car salesman who insisted on telling us the virtues of every car on the lot. We finally came to a car that I showed some interest in and he rushed around to open the door for me and then to the other side of the car to open the door for my wife. As he opened the passenger side door, there was a huge creaking and pop as the door grated against the car's body. Obviously, the car had been in a serious accident and been poorly repaired. The salesman stopped, looked at me and said, "You don't like me very much do you?" and quietly left us to ourselves.
Perhaps we sometimes find ourselves in the position of the used car salesman trying to sell our own defective product. If all genealogical research is open to revision as new sources are found, when do we reach the point of superiority and have the ability to condemn others' work as bad genealogy? I guess I am back to the issue of whether genealogy should be inclusive or exclusive. It is all too easy to put yourself in the position of being the "king of the hill" and attempting to maintain your position by shoving everyone off of the hill.
How do we go about establishing genealogical rules of the road? Is this accomplished by creating a mandatory, elite, professional level of genealogists who set their own standards and attempt to quash any who do not belong to their exclusive organization? I lived with that for years as an attorney. Is that what we really want? If we want the widest possible participation in family history, we need to have the most inclusive possible criteria for what is and what is not acceptable. At the same time, we do need to keep urging those around us in the genealogical community to greater accuracy and more complete documentation. We also need to try to increase our own level of competence and accuracy. Little is accomplished by railing against bad genealogy, especially if you are unwilling to take the time to teach and help those who lack your own skill level.
You must choose your sources and use them within the limitations that you perceive they have.
ReplyDeleteOne glaring example? The LDS familysearch.org.
It might be merely a huge database of information of interest to genealogical researchers, but it is fraught with problems and beset at many turns by bad genealogy or, if you prefer, bad family tree gatherers.
A typical example is the man, born in Berkshire England, who lived for almost 26 years before dying a few score miles from his birthplace, but who somebody has decided must have travelled to North Carolina and married a girl before promptly returning to England to die and who, perhaps without knowing it, fathered a child more than one year after he died. All that was required, apparently, was that he existed around the same time and that his name (admittedly not entirely uncommon) was close enough to that of the spouse of the North Carolinian.
You might think that it's only a remote possibility and a rare kind of error, but unfortunately it is not. The further back in time, the greater the error... especially if somebody in the USA is certain that he or she has an English ancestor, preferably with a better-than-tenuous connection to a knight, lord, or other notable. So when the 17th century lad in Berkshire was busy making whatever life he could, he was blissfully unaware of the seizure of his existence by somebody 3 or 4 hundred years later by somebody hungry to populate a family tree that he had no knowledge of. And the rest of us, busy examining sources and analysing probabilities, have to accommodate the bad family-tree-populators of the world who, for those in generations yet to come, wield a mighty but corrupt weapon to destroy truth.
Interesting comment but misdirected. The online family trees are not the cause of the inaccurate information. These trees, such as the FamilySearch Family Tree only make us aware of the problems that existed all along we just didn't have to deal with before online programs. I find the same issues in old family group sheets that I reviewed years before computers existed.
DeleteDubious "geneologists" who probably go back 3 generations with known details from clients, but then find various unrelated parent combinations & plonk them down. They even found a "francis",a boy on church records then put on a tree as female,frances with a birth date "day/month" using the first two digits(of four which was the microfiche column number) after the baptism year. The actual birth date was listed on the microfiche,obviously didn't go to a library record. Are these people doing trees for money from clients or is it a "feel-good thingee." I'm helping these searchers by easing their mind-I've given them their "heritage" so they can be happy telling their family/kin fake news. That's really rotten to do that to people. It puts a stain on people who know snippets of far-back relatives.It discredits handed-down information that does in my case identify the birth location of an irish lass convict 1835 ,a person 4 generations back,thru the spoken reference to a famous Irish Rose in Munster. It's the same as the top passage halfway down the second paragraph. They are peddling garbage, just filling in gaps randomly with false details to fit the box. False names,birth dates,locations,relationships. It's a deliberate direction - Dont worry,be happy time" for a minority of so-called "geneologists".Maybe if us humans had all been called "Gronkx" & so on,those people-the geneology vandals trashing our heritage would be scratching their chins.I'm also becoming a bit wary of some minor DNA matches,coming up on a commercial descendants site. Of course a lot of work enterprises have targets,keep the money rolling in & we fill our management reports ,then get bonuses.
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