Was researching my family tree when suddenly....?

Question

I traced several branches back almost to the jump. one branch had all kinds of decent info using ancestry's onetree or oneworld thing, when I come across stuff like Thor God of Thunder and Uranus.
Now the entire branch is suspect. delete the whole branch?

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God I hgate it when people dont allow you to contact them
Shirley!! Where on earth do you find SS capd applications??

Answer 1

You're right, the whole branch is suspect. But rather than delete, remove it from the main tree you have by using the "export" feature on your treemaker program. Send it to a GedCom file and then reopen it as a new tree. Go through it and re-verify everything very methodically.

I do this whenever I pick up someone else's work. Until it's nice, clean and documented, I don't want it near the rest of my stuff. It's just so much easier that way. Don't think you're alone. We've all suffered through that mess before. Fool me once, shame on me...fool me twice....you get the picture. Hopefully you've learned a valuable lesson and it won't take long to clean up your old tree. Hopefully your program also made an auto backup recently so that you have your "pre-upload" work all backed up.

Good luck.

BTW, you can get the SSN application copies from SSA. If you go to the SSDI site on Rootsweb, there is a nice explanation of how to request the files. I wish you well...

Answer 2

Information in family trees on any website should be taken as clues not as fact. Most is not documented. Even if you see the same information over and over by different submitters, a lot of copying is being done. There are lot of errors in those trees.

I don't like Ancestry's One World Tree at all.
They have taken liberties with the information in Ancestry World Tree and have combined people with all the different info but I have found some times they have combined two people into one.

I don't know what you have already done. However, you need to get as much information from your family as possible, particularly senior members. Tape them if they let you. Even when they are a little feeble they can be very important sources.
What might seem to be insignifcant ramblings might turn out to be signifcant.
They might have some confusion in facts but sometimes you will find it ties together somewhere.

Then go the an LDS Data Center (Mormon Church). They have records on people from all over the world. I have never had them come ringing my doorbell because I availed myself of their services.

If your public library has a genealogical section, check it out. Browse through and see what they have.

Don't depend on websites. Now Ancestry.Com does have a lot of records and is getting more all the time. They have all the census records thru 1930.

Death certificates and applications for social security numbers give names and place of birth of both parents including mother's maiden name. I think the application for a social security number is more reliable as the applicant is likely to have known where his/her parents were born while the death certificate frequently depends on someone trying to remember where someone was born.

I think Genevieve answered your additional question about the SS number application.
I know Ancestry.Com has the index. Anybody that was drawing social security at the time of death and on their own social security number will be on the SSDI. So those people you don't have to know their social security number. You put in a person's name and once you find that person on the index, there is a place off to the side that you can request a copy of a letter. You can print it off and it is already to be mailed with your check.

Answer 3

Delete the names after the point where you have verifiable evidence (census records or earlier parish baptism and marriage registry). I haven't come up against the likes of Thor, but breezing along in the 1700s, I have come across the sudden appearance of names of people living in places like Ohio or Indiana in the 1920s.

Answer 4

Just accept you are descended from a race of minor deities, then get on with your life.

(You might also want to experiment and see if throwing an axe in the air starts a thunderstorm - that would confirm your descent from Thor.)

Answer 5

Whenever I find a 'match' unless I can find documentation on my own, and I do NOT mean other matches to that match, it doesn't go into my work. All those things are are cues what I might look for, who & where, and some are outrageously wrong.

Answer 6

maybe you are related to Uranus...maybe Im related to your anus.