FABRICATION, STUBBORNESS, AND GENEALOGICAL ACCURACY

I myself have made some WHOPPING mistakes! But when one of these is pointed out I am like lightning grabbing my eraser and making changes on my charts and group sheets. When I make a mistake the cause is simple stupidity or ignorance. It may surprise some that the reason for many genealogical mistakes in the first place is FABRICATION.

As I began to notice and try to correct a number of commonly accepted mistakes in regional families I thought that incompetence was the source of our problems. But it isn't. I am now aware that far worse has been the pure FABRICATION of genealogy that will muddy the waters for centuries. It seems that there have been more than a few folks who when faced with the fact that they did not have an answer, just "made one up". Suddenly maiden names appear for mothers without factual basis. Complete dates of birth and death appear on pedigrees that would try the patience of Job if he tried to track down the source for them. Several generations appear at the top of the family tree when the people in question do not in fact exist. There is no end to the fabricator's ingenuity. The famous Gustav Anjou presents a good example, but there have been many local ones.

These problems would not be so bad for us if they were not so bloody hard to get corrected! Most folks do not have the time, energy, or desire to delve too deeply into family history. Most folks are satisfied to just go down to the library and copy what is available that has been prepared by others, fill out their pedigrees, and be done with it. They do not have the time or are too far away from the source to do much in the way of proving the lineages.

This situation is aggravated by the fact that a lot of folks are reluctant to change anything once they enter it into their family records. People are afraid to throw out information. It seems that whichever version of the story that they hear FIRST will be the one that they cling to.

I have proven CONCLUSIVELY that there was no "Currence Fort" at Mill Creek and published my findings, yet I am still confronted by those who suggest that there is "some question" as to the existence of this fort. Warren Skidmore has been telling everyone who would listen for several decades that Andrew Skidmore was NOT the uncle of President Johnson, and in fact Mary Hatter FOUND Skidmore's real Johnson relatives and proved conclusively that theirs was not the family of the President. Yet family histories are still being published today with that tired old fabrication about the Skidmore family connection to the President.

Mix a fabricator who concocts a family connection to greatness and throw in a group of people who refuse to accept anything that means they have to erase something on their pedigrees and you have a deadly brew .... a nasty tasting concoction that stains the pages of genealogy and confuses the issue for many well meaning researchers who are often in no position to do anything about it.