6 Common Genealogy Mistakes And How To Avoid Them
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Updated July 14, 2022
If you’re starting out on the exciting journey of researching your family tree, you may be unknowingly making some common mistakes in genealogy.
Making any of these errors can mean losing time or money in growing your family tree.
In this post, I share what common mistakes could be made when initially researching a family tree and what to do instead.
Even if you’ve been doing genealogy research for a long time, it’s still a good idea to occasionally review these as a refresher.
6 Common Genealogy Mistakes to Avoid
1) Not reading every document thoroughly
Problem: One mistake that can happen to the best of us is only looking at the names and dates on a document and ignoring everything else.
Result: Not reading each record thoroughly can mean missing a valuable piece of information that may not seem important at first but could be the very clue you need later to move forward in your research.
Solution: Read through every bit of information on every single document, including obituaries and other newspaper articles. Extract Every. Single. Thing. From the person who married them to witnesses to the doctor who signed the birth/death certificate. Put all of it in your research notes and your genealogy software.
2) Not getting (and staying) organized
Problem: When you start doing genealogy research, the digital and paper files can start piling up fast. It can be easy to say you’ll get to it later, because let’s be real, keeping notes and getting organized is less fun than doing the research and making discoveries.
Result: Putting off getting organized can cost you both time and money. You may order the same document twice because you couldn’t remember you had it or couldn’t find where you put it (been there, done that).
Imagine spending the time and money to travel to an archive where your ancestor lived, finding great stuff, and not writing down your sources. If you wanted to someday publish a family history book, share your work with others, or double-check your research if you hit a brick wall, you’d need to recreate your research from scratch to find the sources.
Solution: Keeping a research log will help you know when and where you found something – or didn’t find something – so you don’t waste time looking at the same sources.
Organizing your paper and digital files also ensures you can find documents when you need to so you can spend your time on the fun stuff – looking for new records!
Set up a schedule to regularly update your notes and file your paper and electronic files. The frequency all depends on how much research you do, how many files and notes you’re creating, and your personal preferences.
The important part is to keep up the habit to avoid overwhelm later on.
Related posts:
How To Build The Best File Folder System For Your Genealogy Papers
How to Organize Your Genealogy Files With Binders
How Setting Genealogy Goals Makes You A Better Researcher
7 Tips To Help You Create A Successful Genealogy Research Plan
Image via Falkenpost/Pixabay
3) Only using online resources
Problem: Online databases are amazing and filled with genealogy treasures. But most genealogy records aren’t digitized and won’t ever be.
Result: Overlooking libraries, archives, courthouses, and other repositories can mean missing out on key genealogy records.
Some of the many essential types of records in offline sources are letters, diaries, scrapbooks, land records, probate records, and military records.
Solution: Libraries and archives are essential to learning more about your ancestors beyond when they were born and died. Make a list of the ones in the places your ancestors lived. Explore their websites to see if they have anything that could help your research.
And even though they’re offline, you may still not need to leave your house. Many libraries, archives, and historical societies will help you in your search for your ancestors. Some may help for free and some may have an hourly research fee.
Don't be afraid to branch out your research and reach out to repositories. They are so helpful and used to getting genealogical questions. And who knows what you’ll find!
Related posts:
How to Use the Online Archive of California in Your Genealogy Research
How the Digital Public Library of America Can Power Up Your Genealogy Research
Museum Archives: How To Use This Unique Resource In Your Research
4) Not asking family and extended family what they know.
Problem: Procrastinating on talking to your close relatives and extended family members about their memories and stories about the family.
Result: The biggest risk of putting off interviewing people is that you may lose that family member and the memories are lost forever. People may also develop memory issues and not be able to recall names and other facts.
Solution: Make a list of people you want to talk to and the questions you want to ask them.
But don’t only ask your immediate family questions about the family tree. You may be surprised about who knows stories or has different family mementos.
Be sure to ask aunts and uncles, cousins, and more distant relatives like great aunts or second cousins.
And don’t forget about longtime family friends!
I learned from my 1st cousin, 1x removed that my great-grandmother made delicious doughnuts and that my grandfather used to take him fishing. Those were sweet little factoids to learn about them, as I never got the chance to meet them.
I recently connected with a few 1st cousins 1x removed on my mom’s side and learned the family legend that my great-grandfather was married in Okinawa, but his wife didn't want to immigrate, so he left anyway and married my great grandmother. That's one family myth I may never be able to prove, but it's still interesting and I never would have learned it if I haven't reached out to them.
If you’ve never met some of your distant relatives or family friends, it may feel intimidating to reach out. Try asking another family member who does know them for an introduction if you can to make it easier to connect with them.
Related posts:
Everything You Need to Know About Using Home Sources
How To Effortlessly Analyze Old Obituaries And Verify Their Clues
How and Why to Research Your Collateral Ancestors
5) Taking from someone else’s tree or another source without verifying the information
Problem: This is an incredibly common rookie mistake. Many people have done this at some point.
Result: Adding the wrong names and dates to your tree, or even worse – the wrong people. Adding incorrect people or events to your family tree could mean starting over from scratch, especially if you can’t remember where the issues started.
That can cost you hours, if not months, of wasted time researching the wrong people or following false clues.
Solution: Online trees can be a good resource. They can give you hints on where to look when you’re having trouble finding information on an ancestor.
But don't take them at face value. If someone has an event on their tree, search for it yourself. Verify that it's true and then put it in your tree.
This is especially important for ancestors with common names. It’s very easy to confuse two people with the same name who lived in the same area, and the tree you found may have added the wrong person.
Here’s an example. How could the granddaughter be born 19 years before the grandfather? And 26 years after the grandmother? I’ve seen several trees with this same info, so clearly it’s been copied over and over without taking a closer look.
I’m not trying to shame anyone, but to illustrate what could go wrong if you quickly go through and save information from online trees without evaluating it.
If you’ve grabbed information off of someone else’s tree without checking it, it’s fixable but will take some time. Retrace your steps starting with your parents and verify all the sources, going back a generation at a time. Ancestry makes it easier by being able to search for someone right from their profile.
Go through each person, double-check the events, and add the sources to your tree. And don’t forget to save copies to your computer. Online databases change and that source may go away, so save a copy just in case.
Related post:
6) Not being flexible about dates, spellings of names, places, and nicknames.
Problem: People in the past weren’t as concerned as we are now about being accurate or consistent about their birthday, where they were born, or how to spell their name.
They may have been poorly educated and not known how to spell their name. If they were an immigrant, the person recording the information may have trouble spelling it.
People may have tried to hide things like their true age or birthplace for personal reasons. They may have alternated between using their first and middle names, or initials.
Result: Inconsistencies in the information people provided may lead you to miss important records if you’re too narrow in your search criteria or don’t have an open mind about whether your search results could be a match.
I had a client where almost every document I found had a different town of birth.
One of my ancestors, Pierre Perusse, had his name misspelled on nearly every record. I’ve found Parris, Paris, Pierce, Pyrhus, Perus, and Prusse. Only one US document so far (a city directory) spelled his name right.
Solution: If you’re finding people that sort of match your ancestor, but you think it’s not them because the ages, birthplace, or name don’t match up exactly, don’t dismiss them yet.
Try to find more documents to see if they could be the same person. You could find patterns that help you conclude they’re your family. If only a couple documents have discrepancies, but the rest are close, those couple may be outliers.
Related posts:
11 Smart Strategies For Searching For Ancestors Who Changed Their Name
Why Isn’t My Ancestor in the Census?
Final thoughts
Starting to do genealogy is an exciting time, but it can also be easy to make mistakes as you’re learning.
Look out for these common errors so you can avoid wasting time as you grow your family tree.