Percy Ellwood

[Steve Hayes]

I've just had an interesting case of mistaken identity.

I was trying to follow up a Percy ELLWOOD, son of Henry Holme ELLWOOD
and Mary BUCKLEY, who was born in Cheshire in late 1876.

In the 1901 Census Percy was in Nottinghamshire, boarding with a
Radnall family, and working in a clothing shop.

I wondered if he had got married there, and looked in FreeBMD and
found a marriage in Leicester for a Percy ELLWOOD to Emily Priscilla
WARD.

I could not find a Percy ELLWOOD ub the 1911 Census, but there was one
in Canada, and there was a shipping list showing Percy and Emily, with
two children, Jack and Edward, travelling to Canada in September 1905.
Edward ELLWOOD was baptised in Cheshire, and the marriage of Percy and
Emily in Leicester showed Percy's residence as Nottingham, which
seemed to fit with the 1901 Census.

There was only one problem -- a Canadian census showed Percy as having
a brother Alexander David ELLWOOD, but our Percy did not have such a
brother.

Further investigation showed that there were TWO Percys, born about 7
months apart. The second Percy, with the brother Alexander, was born
in Leicester, son of John ELLWOOD and Emma Sarah WILLIAMS, who both
came from London, not Cheshire. They had several other children, as
did John's parents, Henry and Mary ELLWOOD of Southwark, born around
1804 and 1806.

It just goes to show how easily one can be misled -- I was pretty
certain that since Percy and Emily had a child born in Cheshire, he
must have been the Percy who was born there, but he wasn't.

Now I'm trying to find whether the Leicester Percy's grandparents
Henry and Mary ELLWOOD link up with any other ELLWOOD families.


--
Steve Hayes
Web: http://hayesgreene.wordpress.com/
http://hayesgreene.blogspot.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/afgen/

[knuttle]

I have also had a similar situation.

While the distance was not involved there were two girls who born a
couple miles and months apart. After they married the did not stray far
from the birthplace. In early documents, one decided that she would go
be her middle name and the other by her first name. In later documents
they both went by their first name.

It took several years to sort them out and find documentation to prove
there were two girls. I finally found both of their marriage licenses,
death certificates, and the obituaries of their fathers that listed them
with their married names.

Unfortunately this error still appears in some online trees, and their
owner seem un interested in correcting their mistake.

[Jenny M Benson]

On 31-Aug-18 12:09 PM, knuttle wrote:
> Unfortunately this error still appears in some online trees, and their
> owner seem un interested in correcting their mistake.

I often wonder why so many people publish their trees but seem totally
uninterested in accuracy or in making contact with possible relatives.

I often contact people along the lines of "I see you have Joe Bloggs on
your tree, who is my nth cousin n x removed. Can you tell me what your
Source is for ... as the information I have found suggests ... I am
happy to share with you", but only very rarely do I get any response.

--
Jenny M Benson
http://jennygenes.blogspot.co.uk/

[knuttle]

I always assumed it was like the latest fad in jeans, everyone else has
one so you have to have one. Since you put some names in an online tree
you do not have to worry about it any longer, and once the fad
disappears, the jeans go to the basement and are forgotten.

I think another reason for "abandoned" trees is caused by Ancestry. They
have promoted the "Put your name in, get your tree" for so many years
that there are people who believe that.

Also because of Ancestry's advertising the idea that Ancestry has every
thing there is to know, people do not realize there are other source of
valid information for your genealogy research. ( FamilySearch is a
large one that is in competition with Ancestry which I will bet this
drives the Ancestry bean counter crazy.)

With the above mind set when you try to share information with someone,
they "Know" that since they did not find it on Ancestry it does not
exist, so there is no need to contact you.

[Steve Hayes]

In this case, the error was made by me, and I was able to correct it
within hours, using theb resources of FamilySearch. But it was just a
lucky chance that a brother was staying with the family in the 1911
Census of Canada that enabled us to discover it.

There's another instance where seven Ancestry trees had the wrong
information and three had the right information. Ancestry encourages
people to copy information without checking, and so if more people
copy the wrong information than the right information, it looks like a
majority view, so people assume it must be right.

More information about that here: https://t.co/nDxaSbWDGH

[Ruth Wilson]

I once contacted someone who had linked to my line through one of my
gt-grandmother's brothers as an emigrant to America. As I don't know
what happened to him in later life, it could well be him, although he
then appeared with a middle name (which he could have adopted in
adulthood for any number of reasons).
When I asked the contributor how she "knew" this was the right John
Palmer, she replied that John Palmer was the son of John and Isabella
born in Cumberland ... basically repeating the information in the tree.
No mention of any sources - family bible, marriage certificate,
immigration documentation, etc. Grrrr!
I didn't continue the conversation!
Ruth

[knuttle]

Don't be so quick to give up on this information.

In a side family I found a person of the right age with his parents. And
then found a person with a different name in the same area, of same age,
and a couple of years later married to the my person. I found this
couple in later documentation and the spouses age was as the person
living with his parents.

I found that there was an online tree with both my person and a person
with first and middle names that I thought was two people. ie John and
George vs John George.

When I asked the owner he said the only documentation was the fact that
he knew that in the family the person had been referred to by both
names. I don't know how you documented this type of situation.

After a frustrating series of emails I gave up, and continued working on
my family. A day or two later I was working on the family I grew up in,
and realized I had a similar situation. All my life, I had heard my
uncle referred to by both his first or middle names depending on the
situation.

After much searching I found a family bible that listed the birth
information of the siblings in that family. In that bible his birth
records listed both names. I copies the bible pages for my records and
sort of forgave the tree owner that caused me the frustration.

[Daniel60]

I had a similar situation with one of my Brothers-in-law.

He worked as part of a small team in a Laboratory and he was going to be
the third Allan in the team so he went by his second name, Ross.

I knew Ross for about ten years before I found out his name was Allan Ross!!

--
Daniel