Genealogy 101: Dangers of Following the Pack
Now that the quarantine life is slowly disappearing and we ease back to normal, my research is picking back up. Over the past couple of months I have been able to spend more time on Ancestry.com and MyHeritage.com. There has been a glaring problem that makes my genealogical heart sink…too many researchers following the pack.
Not everyone that joins sites such as Ancestry.com are researchers and I understand that. Some join one time for a free trial or short period of time to do a quick search just to find out what this craze is all about. Others just received their DNA test back and want to jump on for a quick look see. The last of us are true researchers who have spent years enthralled in the endless documents, stories, dna tests, dusty books, and local libraries.
This diverse clientele within genealogy websites leads to a reckless following of the pack. You do a quick search of your great grandfather and find several family trees and assume the person that has the tree is an expert and has done their due diligence with their research. You then start your own tree and add in the information from the tree online. Now you think, “Yes! Look at all this information. I know so much about my family now!”. Problem? You followed the pack. You did not do your own research to ensure that the tree you found online is actually true.
Following the pack goes wrong….
My great great grandfather, George Bader, was born in Northwest Indiana in 1859. I have never been able to pin down a date but he was born in Michigan City in 1859 and his parents are Stephen and Teresa Bader as census records show. I lived in this town and have seen the headstones and followed the paper trail.
Now, the next big town south of Michigan City is LaPorte, Indiana. There was another Bader family living there about the same time my Bader family lived just north in Michigan City. I have never been able to confirm if possibly these two Bader families are related or not. More coincidentally, there was a George Bader born to a Nicholas Bader in 1855 in LaPorte (somewhat close to my George Bader born in 1859).
Using birth, death, marriage, and census records, I have been able to trace my direct ancestry back to George Bader of Michigan City. His marriage certificate shows he was married to Mary Kearns in Michigan City. I can then trace him through census records where he left his wife, lived in Chicago and then went out to Oregon where he died and his death certificate confirms birth year and birth city. This is my George Bader.
The other trees on Ancestry.com seemed to simply follow one or two other people that just simply assumed that the George Bader born in LaPorte was the same one born in Michigan City without doing the paper trail. They are two very different people.
Break the Pack Mentality
Following the pack and using trees created by others on genealogical websites is full of assumptions and simply put…reckless. Making assumptions in research can only lead you into a web that is hard to detach from. The longer you believe something to be true, the harder it is to remove that belief.
When you begin research (or have even been doing it for years) take the family trees you see online with a grain of salt. Look at all of them with suspicion.
Assuming one George Bader could have been the only George Bader in a county, even in the mid-late 1800’s is naive. If there is yet another rule in genealogy it is to never assume!
Also, pay attention to city versus county. Michigan City is in LaPorte County but the county seat is the city of LaPorte. Often records may come up as ‘LaPorte’ but it refers to the county and not the city.
The devil is in the details but if you brush over the details it can completely derail your research- often, without you knowing.
