Re: Jemima, Huntley
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In reply to:
Re: Jemima, Huntley
Mary Moore 4/29/04
Hi Mary,
Welcome to the club. At least you had the sense to RUN the problem report. A lot of people don't. I suspect there two or three Jemimas, and they got merged into one. They could have been mother and daughter, older and younger cousins, aunt and niece. Your genealogical programs are merely reporting the fact they were fed garbage. The 112 people who copied the data onto Ancestry put too much faith in computers.
You didn't say what the 112 used as sources. I'll bet it was the LDS Ancestral Files, which is only 75% accurate. The 25% that isn't ranges from the obvious (people born in WEST Virginia before 1863, or in Ohio before 1788) to real howlers, like a man who married and had five children 30 years after he died.
If you are serious about this, write to the people who cite sources, point out the error, and verify the sources. If the source is the LDS AF, you'll have to find others, or go back to the sources from the AF submiters. Someone at a Family History Center can help you there.
If you are lucky, you'll get it straightened out in a month or two, and no one's feathers will be ruffled. If you are unlucky, it could take longer and arouse bad feelings. There used to be a 2,000-word post on the GenForum MATHIS page that was all caps. The tone was so angry they deleted it; if it had been on paper, the pen would have torn through the paper in places and it would have been flecked with angry spittle.