Recently, I ran across a forum post at my favorite French genealogy website asking for help to find military information he thought was written in his ancestor’s death record. I looked at the 1692 document, and at first glance, I didn’t see any of that kind of information. But since he gave, seemingly, a factual name of a military detail, I looked at the record a second time. There were a few words I wasn’t sure of, so I studied them, but through the lens of a biased viewpoint. The word in the record that I thought was ‘Chaussier”, a French military unit, was actually (old spelling)’Chrestien” which means Christian. I saw what looked like double ‘s’ but was actually ‘st’, what I thought was ‘au’ was ‘re’. I would still have been ignorant of this if not for a very qualified translator who came to set the ‘record’ straight.
The problem I had was trying to make the word fit with unverified information that was given.
Lesson learned
As I looked over that branch of his family tree, there were very few sourced details of genealogical value provided for each of his ancestors. I could find no evidence that this ancestor of his was part of any military unit.
So, the military information he had provided could not be substantiated.
That doesn’t mean the information doesn’t exist ; it just means that, until documentation is provided, it cannot be counted as fact.
I think all of us can relate to this gentleman at one time or another in our genealogical journeys.
Thoughts on why this happens:
- Relying on family lore as fact,
- Almost sure, but can’t prove it
- Forgetting to provide the citations or documentation.
- The information has been embellished (my materinal side has done this).
- Disinformation was provided
Depending on the kind of information you have, these are options of what you can do:
- Unlink the disputed person (s) from the rest of the family tree
- Remove the undocumented information
- Add that information into the ‘NOTES’ section with an explanation that the information you have can’t be proved..yet.
- Add to your notes everything you know and why you believe it to be true
- Add a note indicating what of the information is family lore.
- Add a link in the notes to the family branch to
- Cite your sources!!
I know citing sources is not pleasant and time-consuming, but it is so very important.
Let me give you two examples of what I mean by all of this. I have an ancestor who married three times in Torgny, Belgium. All of his children were born and baptized in that town, and he eventually died there. The spelling of his surname has around 7 documented variations. In all of the mountains of documents, not one piece of it mentioned his place of birth or the names of his parents. This puzzle has been the case for the last 15 years. Several weeks ago, I pulled out all of the documents I had and went through them again. I came across a single clue that I had overlooked the previous times. The godfather to one of his children had his city of residence listed.. I trotted right over to the Departmental Archives of Meurthe-et-Moselle, and looked through the city of Longwy town’s records for the years I thought he was born. Voilà, there was the name of a Michel-Nicolas Lefevre born in 1730. I was elated,
BUT, his father was Michel Lefeive born in 1700. Which one would be the right one? I could not prove either of them as the same ancestor as the one who lived in Torgny. And it’s possible neither of them is. But I added the new stand alone Michel LeFevres (one of many spellings) to my family tree, and provided all the notes and conclusions with the link to the Michel Lefevre of Torgny. /*Note: don’t let your eyes glaze over the listing of godparents in baptism records. They can be extremely important!
(I very much doubt I will ever be able to prove it, unless some miraculous document descends from heaven.)
This example is also true. It was first said that the ancestor was born around a certain city or country, and within one generation, it now becomes the actual town or country of birth. Born around Strasbourg, France, has now been skewed to born in Strasbourg. In reality, the birth record was found in a southern town in Belgium, 150 miles away.
It’s possible the ancestor(s) couldn’t remember their place of birth, or didn’t know exactly where. (In some cases, they might not know or remember their date of birth!) Thankfully, the departmental archives of France and the state archives of Belgium have digitized and uploaded their vital records online. We can now find documents to prove or disprove the genealogical legends or new information that will lead you to new ancestors.
As you can see, we can cut down the misinformation that would, otherwise, be passed down to your descendants and other family members. And in this regard, deter others from adding unproven data from your family tree to theirs. Of course, there are those who will run with whatever information they can grab, whether if it’s true or not. For shame :o)
One last reminder: Always cite your sources!! “It’s not true, until you do.”