Are you a person that's a "grabber" (tree grabber, that is) at Ancestry, FamilySearch, or other genealogy websites? What's a grabber, you ask?
Well, it's someone that just sees a name and puts it in their tree. I saw a post on Facebook a while back that made me laugh. The person said, "I've been doing genealogy for three days, and I'm back to the 1200s!" Comments back to the person were, "So you checked every person as you went back in time?" "Man, you work fast!" "Must be some kind of record."
I was laughing at myself because years ago that could have been me. I didn't get very far back, though, because I had a mentor who stopped me when I was getting ahead of myself. I am thankful for her guidance.
Have you seen a name and looked at the birth date and said to yourself, "Oh, my gosh, there he/she is" and added them to your tree without looking at the actual documents or records?
Did you look at the original documents to make sure that he/she was - say - born in Tennessee and died in Texas? Because if the person you put in your tree was from Kentucky (on all records, well documented, born, married, died there) and you're searching for a "Tennessee to Texas" ancestor, you just put the wrong person in your family tree.
First, you have to look at the original records/documents at Ancestry, FamilySearch, etc.
Second, don't get in a hurry. We want the answers to our genealogy questions "right now", but the reality is sometimes it's just not that easy. Oh, I wish it was!
Third, I'm on "do-overs" even now. I'm sure I have more corrections to make, and if anyone sees a mistake, please, please, let me know so I can correct it.
Fourth, I want my trees to be accurate. I want the timelines of my ancestors to be correct as I view where they were in time and where they lived.
Don't you want yours to be correct, too? I think you do.
WARNING - I'm going to note in my trees in capital letters who the parents of certain people ARE NOT. I hope that helps researchers stop and look closely at the records. I've left notes at various trees over the years, and then quit, but I'm starting again. If the tree owner doesn't check out the discrepancies, at least maybe other researchers will.
And yes, I hope you leave notes to me, too, so I can correct my mistakes of the past.
We owe it to our people, or at least I feel that I do. Let's at least get their lives "right" according to the records we can find. I think we can do that, don't you?
- Revis
