52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 9 – Conflicting Clues
Prompt: The theme for Week 9 is “Conflicting Clues.” Sources don’t always agree, and it’s up to us as genealogists to sort out what is correct. This week, explore an ancestor whose records pointed in different directions. How did you sort it out?
It’s been my experience in researching my family tree that, when I think that I have found conflicting information about an ancestor, most of the time, what has actually happened is that I have made mistakes myself.
Here’s a problem I have encountered more than a few times: I look at an ancestor’s information and notice that I have not one but two different censuses for that person for the same year. When I encounter this, I look at each census very carefully, noting siblings, parents, etc. Most often than not, I have mistakenly combined two different individuals.
Being assured that one has the correct information is infinitely more difficult when fewer records were kept during that ancestor’s life or when records are not available.
Add to either of those scenarios the fact that you are dealing with ancestors and their descendants possessing the same given and last name through multiple generations, and the result can be chaos and confusion.
Such is the case with multiple “Titus Laney”s in my family tree. Assigning the relatively few available records for that name to only one person when there are countless others to whom the record might be applicable is an ongoing frustration for me.
Here is a listing of all of the ancestors named “Titus Laney” who I currently have in my family tree:
Distinguishing between the 18th century Titus Laneys and, thus, who had which children has been extremely difficult. Even published scholars have disagreed on many of the details of the families.
I try to find articles or books written by other researchers and compare their findings with my own. Often, histories of the county or township where an ancestor lived can provide a lot of helpful and anecdotal information. Whether these are reliable sources is another matter.
I look forward to reading what others participating in this particular assignment submit. As experienced a researcher as I am, I hope to learn from what tools or methods genealogists more advanced than myself use for such predicaments.
