Nothing in the world is half as frustrating as spending two weeks researching and finding out that you’re tracing a family history that isn’t even your own.

Nearly every genealogist, from the amateur to the professional has had some experience with this error, and has been frustrated by it at one time or another.

Wasting time and money on research isn’t fun and finding out you’ve done it is definitely going to ruin your week.

The tracing of our ancestors isn’t an exact science, as much as we wish it were.
Missing records, incorrect spellings, wrong data entirely and family stories embellished by myth nd mystery can send us hunting in the wrong town, the wrong state, or even the wrong country, nevermind just getting the wrong family.

How do you avoid getting hit by the “Holy Smokes we’re not related!!”bug?

While its not always possible, to be honest,to completely avoid that trap, there are a couple methods to minimize the chances that you end up in the wrong place, or tracing someone elses family tree–
Don’t hit and miss on the generations. Try not to miss any or skip over them. You may think you know it all about your parents and grandparents and its possible that you do, but in many cases, you don’t. As a beginning researcher I was tempted to skip over my grandparents and move to my great grandparents, and was glad that I hadn’t. I wasn’t aware that my grandmother was an identical twin,and that she and her sister had married brothers. What an interesting find, about a woman I thought I knew everything about.

Try not to assume things to be true. Just because someone was called Junior, didn’t mean that they were related. Relationships were often quite a bit more loose in older times than they are now. Very often when a wife died, her sister might move in to take over the care of the children. Assuming that the adult female in that household was the wife, will quite often prove to be wrong.Ask yourself repeatedly if something makes sense to you and if it doesn’t, find out why before you move on to further generations. Sometimes you’ve skipped a generation inadvertently and sometimes, the generations were named after each other, both son and daughter so that you’re going to need to be diligent to get it all straight.

Keeping your generations and your data straight, and making sure that everything makes sense to you is going to be one of the best ways to assure that you are actively hunting… and finding… your own family and not someone elses.
Happy Hunting.

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