My husband, Peter, has been mumbling to himself in the kitchen. Well that’s not new!
He is reading out text from a small book written a hundred years ago by an ancestor of his about his family. The book was given by the author, Thomas Helm, to his niece (?) Peter’s mother when she was a lot younger and she is now 92. The question mark about their relationship is hers.
The text Peter is reading out is:- ‘my mother Euphemia Helm nee Hunter’. At the same time Peter is leafing through his family history records with a computer screen open in front of him. You probably know the sort of thing….. Mumble, mumble, ‘Euphemia Helm nee Hunter’ . Then he announced ‘something’s wrong – someone’s given me wrong information’. Ahhaa yes, well that is what happens – go to the original records yourself and don’t just take people words for it – the mind plays tricks and when we write down the precious memories of relatives they may well have names and the generations mixed.
Or then there is the typing error.
Caroline Makein, of ‘Fife Rootsearch’, a professional Scottish genealogist once told me of something which happened to her. When searching for information about one of her own ancestors she came across dates which were quite wrong. When she unearthed where the wrong information had come from she found it was from a typing error she had made herself. Of course the erroneous information was already out there in the ether getting itself quoted and copied into other peoples records. No doubt someone, somewhere, is mumbling to themselves in their kitchen ‘someone’s given me wrong information’. Check your original sources seems to be the byword for family history research.
