A GEDCOM motherlode for my wifes family
Steven Stone
My father-in-law had about 6 generations worth of data on his family
surname, Garrabrant. There is tons of information online on them.
Many large families in each generation, they were early settlers of
New Amsterdam, Brooklyn, Long Island, New Jersey, and Rockland
County, NY. Lots of local colonial and pre colonial history books
with info on them as well as GEDCOMs. I stumbled across a GEDCOM
that matches 98 percent perfect with what I have and goes back to
medieval times. Seems to have good citations and references.
Should I trust something like this? When tracing a family line how
many branches should you pull into your own tree? This is more like
a forest than just one tree?
http://www.gencircles.com/users/kimbo8867/1/bysurname?Garrabrant
Steven Stone <xxsp...@xxcitlink.net>
Steve W. Jackson
I'd practically kill to come across something like that... :-)
I think the standard advice is to trust nothing until proven. Since
you say the GEDCOM appears well documented and sourced, you should
be able to track down much of the same information on your own and
confirm it. If it holds up, then you've saved yourself the need to
find/discover the information and have merely researched the proof.
And only you can decide how many branches you want to keep. For me,
it was my wife's family and her sparse knowledge of it that
initially led me to start looking. But she never got serious and
later learned she'd been adopted at birth, so now it languishes.
But it's still important to me that I can tell my children something
about who they are on *both* sides of the family.
--
Steve W. Jackson
Montgomery, Alabama
"Steve W. Jackson" <stevew...@knology.net>
cecilia
> > My father-in-law had about 6 generations worth of data on his family
> > with info on them as well as GEDCOMs. I stumbled across a GEDCOM
> > that matches 98 percent perfect with what I have and goes back to
> > medieval times. Seems to have good citations and references.
> [...] I think the standard advice is to trust nothing until proven.
> [...]
> you should be able to track down much
> of the same information on your own and
> confirm it. [...]
>
> "Steve W. Jackson" wrote:
Checking the books given as sources is one thing, but you need to be
wary about the books' sources.
If you cannot check everything, but find no contradictory evidence,
there's still little harm in hanging on to it *with a caveat* - you
might suddenly come across an appropriate source.
As to cousins etc - they may indicate the milieu of a direct
ancestor, which can be interesting.
People vary as to what they keep, and how much confirmation they
require - and many people have both "seriously likely" (ie well
sourced) and "possible" branches in their trees.
my...@ic24.net (cecilia)
D. Stussy
Use it: Certainly.
Trust it: There's the question!
If you choose not to verify the whole thing, then pick 5% or about
50 citations of data sources and look them up to see that the data
is at least accurate back to the source cited. If your sample
verifies 100%, then chances are that everything is good.
Note that sources are not always equal in the quality of data.
I too got lucky 8 years ago when I was steered to a book published
in the 1920's that had one pair of my great-grandparents listed - as
my parent and I had nothing on our ancestry beyond them. Although
there were a couple of errors, most of it was accurate.
As far as what to include beyond one's own direct line, my choice is
that I include whatever is available. In fact, today I got a query
from someone who found her grandparents in my data - included in my
database because it was available and cousins of my cousin's
cousins. I got the info from another researcher as it came along
with the information I wanted where our interests overlapped.
There's been situations where my second cousin's second cousin via
different ancestors was my 10th cousin, etc.... However, I still
have much to do with my own line and blood-cousins, so that's what I
actively research, except for some side-trips in response to
contacts I make along the way.
"D. Stussy" <sp...@bde-arc.ampr.org>
AEP
> My father-in-law had about 6 generations worth of data on his family
> surname, Garrabrant. There is tons of information online on them.
> Many large families in each generation, they were early settlers of
> New Amsterdam, Brooklyn, Long Island, New Jersey, and Rockland
> County, NY. Lots of local colonial and pre colonial history books
> with info on them as well as GEDCOMs. I stumbled across a GEDCOM
> that matches 98 percent perfect with what I have and goes back to
> medieval times. Seems to have good citations and references.
> Should I trust something like this? When tracing a family line how
> many branches should you pull into your own tree? This is more like
> a forest than just one tree?
>
> http://www.gencircles.com/users/kimbo8867/1/bysurname?Garrabrant
>
> Steven Stone <xxsp...@xxcitlink.net>
With a 98 percent match (even if is lower than that), it sounds like
you hit the mother lode of data. Presuming your own research is
well done, and the GEDCOM uses source material you do not have, I
would say this information is a boon to your advancement. In which
case, congratulations on your *very* lucky find! Just be sure to
make reference to the GEDCOM and where you found it. (After all, it
is only fair to cite the person who provided so much good
information!)
As for reaching beyond the 1600-1550 range, I would suggest that
such documentation gets fuzzier and fuzzier the further back in time
one goes. Granted, there are examples of well documented lineages
reaching into the 900s. That said, many of those "genealogies"
proving so-and-so is related to Charlemaine are very iffy
speculation. Thus, if you leave such info in your own data, be sure
to mark the limit(s) of your own research and label the rest as WAG
(wild ass guess!) or SWAG (super wild ass guess!)
Regards, Arnold
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Charani
> I stumbled across a GEDCOM
> that matches 98 percent perfect with what I have and goes back to
> medieval times. Seems to have good citations and references.
> Should I trust something like this? When tracing a family line how
> many branches should you pull into your own tree? This is more like
> a forest than just one tree?
>
The golden rule with any research that you find, no matter where or
by whom, is to double check it against the original sources as far
as you possibly can. Anything you can't check should be annotated
with the source given in what you have found with the rider "not
independently verified" or words to that effect.
As to what you include or exclude from your family tree, that is a
matter for each individual. Some people only trace the direct line
and don't bother with any siblings at all, even their own uncles and
aunts; others trace every name in every direction as far as they
can.
Charani <SGBNOSPAM@ mail2genes.invalid>