Lies, more lies and Family History

It's all got to be a little too much, hasn't it? You don't know? Well, let me explain.

Take the Ancestry website  - there are people on there who call themselves researchers but whose only desire is to connect  themselves to every title that ever came out of the UK. For some many - all the better if the connection is to royalty - the perfect result for so many. Personally I would prefer to be related to someone who did something really outstanding during their lives, and if I am the first to connect such a person to my family, what a thrill that would be.

I hate to level accusations, but so many of these sloppy researchers appear to come from the other side of the Atlantic and I don't mean Canada or South America. The many dedicated researchers there must cringe when they see these people calling themselves researchers, who have puffed up their families out of all reason. What a dis-service to the true researchers who know what they are about.

I doubt whether many of those who claim connections to 10 or 20, 000 people, as some do, have actually carried out any proper research themselves. No - they hunt around - find what appears to be a suitable connection from amongst the many families on the website, and then set about connecting themselves, and if possible, to every titled Tom, Dick and Harry. I can see them rubbing their hands with glee.

They call themselves family historians or even genealogists (because that word sounds grander) but all they really want to do is brag about who they are related to. I should hate to be one of their descendants trying to find proof of the connections, because so many of them cannot explain where the research came from.

Grasping at straws - and without even having a suitable atlas of Great Britain or checking orginal records -  they happily search the many families available on the website, plump for a suitable family  with the same name - and then 'steal' the details for that family. Often the connection turns out to be mistaken - but what the heck - let it stand unaltered.

I discovered today that one of my daughter's ancestors had been 'stolen' and what is worse, the 'researcher' gives other the impression they are reliable researchers. The connection shown has the person born in a county which the family had absolutely no connection with - ever. However the person chosen seemed like a suitable candidate - so shove her in as part of the family! Add a marriage, and voila, another line to pursue. In this partiuclar instance even the two censuses given as proof appear to be for two entirely different women. How very sloppy.

If you are researching your family, and especially if you come from across the Atlantic, please, check out the connections given by others on the website and never assume them to be correct until you have proved them for yourself.
Talk about social climbing! Check the connections properly before you decide your raltion came from royalty - for a start can you trust the other family tree? You'd be surprised at the number of people who believe their ancestor was Gentlemen Jim Corbett's  brother - his father must have had at least 300 children, by all accounts!

Are you so lazy and shallow that you are reduced to grasping at straws in order to impress others?  What an insult to those who do their research properly and refuse to use shoddy methods of research, And if you have been 'researching' for years - even more shame on you - giving the impression you are a researcher of some merit. Get out, you are cluttering things up for the true researchers and stop calling yourself a family historian!