Today, 31 January 2011, Karen at the “AncesTree Sprite” blog posted the entry, “Assumptions Can Be So VERY Wrong!” This blog entry should be read by all genealogists, for it details errors concerning Karen herself that have popped up on various online family trees. The entry describes her father’s life, and how it has been misrepresented by other researchers, based on inaccurate assumptions. Karen further explores the origin of these various errors, and why making assumptions can lead to incorrect conclusions.
Even the most experienced researchers are guilty of making assumptions and jumping to conclusions. However, thorough research will nearly always bring these inaccuracies to light. This demand to be thorough, after all, is the very reason that the very first tenet of the Genealogical Proof Standardis to “conduct a reasonably exhaustive searchfor all relevant records.” Following this tenet, researchers can not only reduce the likelihood of errors based on assumptions but also errors based on inaccurate records, as explored in this column in the article, “Learning from genealogical failure.”
Here is just one example of an assumption that I have made in research, only to later discover records that proved the assumption wrong:
The 1850 federal census for Prince George’s County, Maryland, contains the household of Joseph N. Baden, Sarah Baden, and two children. The 1860 federal census contains Sarah F. Baden as the head of a household containing only the two young men that were children in 1850. On 28 November 1826, in Prince George’s County, Joseph N. Baden married a Sarah T. Hawkins. I assumed that “Sarah F. Baden” and “Sarah T. Hawkins” were the same woman. The script “F” and “T” could easily be confused by transcribers.
However,
Sarah made a claim for several of her slaves that had joined the U. S. Colored Troops, under the auspices of the Slave Claims Commission for Maryland. In both this record and several others, Sarah is called “Sarah S. Baden.” The slaves that she claimed were surnamed “Hawkins”—and presumably were originally owned by the family of Sarah T. (Hawkins) Baden—yet in her claim, Sarah testified that she obtained the slaves through the will of her husband, Joseph N. Baden. In his will, Joseph N. Baden devises to several of his grandchildren, that “their portion of negros to be Selected from the negros which came to me by their Grand Mother (my first wife)....” Though no other marriage record has been located in Prince George’s County for Joseph N. Baden, either before or after the marriage to Sarah T. Hawkins, this legacy proves that he was married twice. The slaves owned by Sarah S. Baden, surnamed “Hawkins,” were probably among the same group of slaves that “came to” him from Sarah T. Hawkins, his first wife. Sarah S. Baden was therefore probably not the same woman as Sarah T. Hawkins.
This is just one example of how assumptions can create inaccurate conclusions, and how thorough research can prevent them.
Comments
Here's a mistake years back, I made on my Sage family kin. My ancestress was Mrs. Hetty-Bella Sage James; her older sister Elizabeth Sage, born 1765, wed Thomas Cowan, Sr., and had amongst others, Thomas Cowan, Jr. Then I find Mrs. Thomas Cowan, Sr., (her son was Thomas Cowan, Jr.), Sarah Sage Cowan, died 1866. So...., I figured that Mrs. Elizabeth Sarah Sage Cowan, born 1765, died 1866, had one son, named Thomas Cowan, Jr. That's not a hard forced-fit, just a mild forced-fit. Then I saw the Cowan family Bible: they were sisters, Elizabeth Sage died 1796, her Thomas Cowan, Jr., died young. Then Sr. wed her sister Sarah Sage, born 1774, and her Thomas Cowan, Jr., also died young. So she had another, longer living Thomas Cowan Jr. Thomas Cowan, Sr., wed sisters and had three Thomas Cowan, Jr's.
Recently I was in my Hilton and Shapleigh very old New England lines and saw the note; that back then, many children briefly had a certain name, until finally one lived into adult hood.
With three generations in a row of the same names, the original Jr. to his Sr., can become Sr. to his Jr.; thus he's been both a Jr. & Sr. Though I am a "Jr.", it's never been on my birth certificate, notr "Sr" on my late father's.
Man, us white people's names are hard to explain when we get into sons named II (2nd), III (3rd), etc.; almost as bad as numbered French and English Kings. Surely someone else can explain "doing the numbers" names, better than I.
Thank you for referring to my blog post of Jan 31 in this article. The funny thing is that I;ve found myself guilty of jumping to conclusions at times during my own research, only to uncover the truth of the matter later on down the road. But it is a totally different feeling when you find you yourself having been the subject of erroneous assumptions in another's family tree.
Now I can imagine how my Great-Great-Uncle Sam's second wife Emma would have felt if she only knew that for quite some time I thought she was one and the same with his first wife, also named Emma.
Thank you for adding your own examples of how assumptions can be made -- and how they can often lead to inaccurate conclusions.
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