More real, less illusion

Erica,
Further to your Dec. 24 comment in response to the question from Alex re use of geology in genealogy I have several comments.
1. Yes, Indigenous genealogy has its own challenges if we try to chart it. When human remains have been removed from their original burial context and placed in museums we have a particular challenge in answering Geni's call to identify the burial location. However, you are right that science (archaeology and aspects of geology in particular) can shed light on the COMMUNITIES of ancient times. Our Project has an archaeology link which has considerable promise.
2. Yes, geology can illuminate population movements.
3. In archaeology in North America we talk about tool kits of the ancient ancestors and the fact that there is significant diagnostic information in the ancients' preferences for certain distinctive types of chert in stone tool manufacture and use. Lithics, including macroscopic approaches to analysis, is a broad and productive field of study.
4. By collating archaeological sites far from Lake Superior with native copper from Lake Superior we can infer the trade relationships of groups and patterns of movement across the land.
5. Because of the popularity of shoreline sites for settlement, understanding the location of ancient shorelines is extremely helpful in increasing the likelihood of finding occupation sites of the ancient ones. The best results come from understanding quaternary geology. Higher archaeological potential exists at the mouths of ancient rivers so we need specialized quaternary geology background to undertake such investigation.
6. People have always liked having dry feet so nastawgans (routes through the land) are easier to find if we have skill at identifying eskers.

There are many other examples. The best overall understanding comes from blending genealogy with archaeology and aspects of geology.

In Reference to Erica and Justins Posts, over The Holidays.

*Just in case anyone, has not already, seen these varying takes on the subject. 😘

https://familysearch.org/blog/en/family-tree-adam-eve/

http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2010/01/back-to-adam.html

http://articles.petoskeynews.com/2013-09-13/adam-and-eve_42048618

"Hispanic Genealogy: http://users.aol. com/mrosado007/ is a special interest group ... (q.v.) that finds items based on how a name sounds rather than its literal spelling. ... displayed tracings of their family lines all the way back to Adam and Eve, ..."

https://books.google.com.pr/books?id=tjIg5yEiFCMC&pg=PA94&l...

And this last link, is totally, of topic (except for one, choice feature, on tracing lineage to Adam & Eve.
But it is a must, in terms of "Comic Relief", for every brick wall and speculation- weary genealogical brain. 😂👍🏽

http://milin.net/genealogy/genealog/Letsuse/witnwisdom.html

xoxoxoxoTheresa Renée

One more, which covers quite a bit of ground. (Did Justin Write this? heehee! 😉)

http://freepages.family.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ja7smith/Theories.html

Yesterday Geni reported that we have a new "follower" and, as usual, offers the chance to send the person a message. This is interesting since the person is deceased. And even more interesting because today the person has disappeared as a follower. But not before I copied his profile, including his date of death.

That Geni posts a deceased person as a follower causes me to ponder. Multiple questions wash over me and more question about this "phenomenon" may wash over other followers and collaborators in Project "Geni as Illusion?"

1. If I send a message to the deceased person have I declared that I believe in dialogue with dead people?
2. If I get a response from the deceased person am I in dialogue with the real individual or a living proxy for the individual?
3. If I can be in dialogue with one deceased person can I be in dialogue with all dead people?
4. Is there an illusion at work in this case?
5. Is there delusion at work for anyone who believes in dialogue with the dead people listed in Geni?
6. What would Hedges say about Geni's invitation to be in dialogue with a dead person?
7. Here comes everybody indeed. What would Clay Shirky say about the behaviour of folks who are willing to spend time on Geni in dialogue with the dead?
8. Should I reveal the profile of the deceased person who has stimulated this component of our discussion?

You other followers out there may have your own questions about this new "reality" that has arrived in our Project.

Thanks for the cool links, Theresa. I have the one to FamilySearch Blog in my collection but I hadn't seen the others.

> Did Justin Write this?

Hehe. When it comes to being long-winded, this guy has me beat by a mile ;)

Maven B. Helms:
Welcome to Project "Geni as Illusion?" I see that Geni reports that I am a distant cousin but the relationship path goes back so far that I am a bit cautious about accepting all the links. There are 2 Discussions to date. We look forward to your comments in one or both. See Private User

There's a known fictitious link in the tree as given, but I'm not doing anything about it at this time. Specifically, John Welsh, Sr. is probably neither the son of Rev. John Welch of Ayr nor the father of Maj. John Welsh of Anne Arundel.

One or both of my well-tested other links is probably good, though, either Hanby/Hamby or Cheney (a collateral line but it still gives me the shivers).

Bingo - both links say you're a distant cousin also, and I've tested both lines as hard as I can myself, so I'm pretty sure of *them*. (Those Cheneys married into *every* other prominent family at one time or another, so they turn up *a lot*.)

Ah, the dreaded shivers! Maven, yesterday in the Gateways discussion you used the term "family mythology" in the sense that seemed to suggest that some Geni users set out to create a sort of "revisionist history" by embedding colourful or famous personalities into the fabric of the family record they are building and as such the family record becomes a family mythology. If a real person in the family can be replaced by one with a colourful experience such as burning at the stake, the Geni myth makers make the transfer. Would you tell us more about your finding of other deliberate myth makers in Geni?

Actually I think it started long before Geni, and some of those "family legends" just got picked up and transferred wholesale.

I got started when I had to debunk (and debunk, and debunk, and debunk) the fake genealogy created by Emma Siggins White c. 1920 for the benefit of her husband. She just couldn't stand it that his known ancestors were "mere" Somerset sheep farmers, so she looked around until she found an aristocratic family with a three-generation pattern match of names and then boldly overlaid the aristos onto the sheep farmers.

She overlooked a few things: the aristos were fanatical Catholics and quite well documented; the sheep farmers were generic Protestant and *had* been documented by another White relative; the Internet made both the false and the true information easily available (she couldn't have foreseen *that*).

All the same, to this day (and minute) we still have newcomers whose "information" was either based on or ultimately derived from Emma Siggins White....

Another case of White mythmaking starts with the Duvall family in Anne Arundel, Maryland. They put it about that an ancestress, one Frances Wells, birth name White, was the daughter of Sir Richard White and Lady Catherine Weston (daughter of the first Earl of Portland).

Exploring the facts behind this soon showed that the latter half of the equation could not be true - Lady Catherine would have been too young. (It also revealed that her father had done his own "improving" of his pedigree, but that's another story.)

More digging turned up the interesting information that Sir Richard had had a first wife, whose name was Anne Gray, and who was the daughter of a razor-sharp lawyer named Andrew Gray of Hinxworth. There was a daughter Mary, who was married in a secret Catholic ceremony (these Whites were a branch of the fanatical Catholic aristos), a son who presumably died young (since George, first son of the *second* marriage, inherited), and...*maybe* another daughter whose name was unknown.

Sir Richard and Lady Catherine *did* have a daughter Frances, but she would have been *much* too young, and in any case was packed up and moved to France, and then Rome, with the rest of the family in 1642. (At that date it was far from unknown to give half-siblings the same name.)

The Duvall legend leaned heavily on the concordance of a Jerome White among the children of Sir Richard and Lady Catherine, and a Jerome White who was Surveyor-General of Maryland in the 1660s, claimed to be related to Frances and her daughter Mary, and left abruptly for England just before Jerome son of Sir Richard reputedly got involved with negotiations to marry James, Duke of York (afterward James II) to Mary of Modena. The jury is out on whether this was coincidence or they were the same guy - so I wound up giving Frances half the benefit of the doubt (daughter of Sir Richard, maybe, but if so her mother was Anne Gray).

White of Somerset (the sheep farmers):
Thomas White of Somerset
Agnes Richards White, of Somerset
Thomas White, Jr. of Somerset
Richard White of Somerset
Robert White "the elder" from whom John White of Lancaster (grandson, and ancestor of John Barber White)

The aristos:
Sir Thomas White, Sr., MP
Agnes White
Thomas White, Jr., MP
Sir Richard White (one son, Thomas, died without offspring; one daughter).

Thanks for the stories. I wonder if more recent Geni users set out deliberately to create false family myths which get copied by others thinking they are factual?.

It's such a common pattern I'd be surprised if it's limited to any particular time. We see it over and over. One branch of a family climbs the social ladder, perhaps over a few generations. They start to notice they don't know anything about their ancestry. They do some poking around and find a suitable place to connect what they know to an older, illustrious family. Et voilà. A myth is born, and gets perpetuated.

Anybody remember the Scarburgh Snarl and the "fun" we had untangling it? That *was* the work of a Geni prankster who wanted to claim illustrious ancestry for himself and made a mess of a dozen or so families in doing so. (When challenged, he would dig in his heels and become belligerent to the point of obnoxiousness.)

Erica Howton -- just found out where a name in the tree we were untangling came from, in a message on a forum. (The name made no sense, and appeared only in web trees as far as I could see.). In the 80's, the family hired "professional genealogists," who took the tree on back to their customers' satisfaction, but gave no sources.

So, an Anglo Saxon woman with the name Marian Stroud, with precise birth and death dates. Oh, and she was a Duchess of Essex.

Appears no place else in history. (Let me know if I'm wrong! I will go change everything and reinstate her!). (Not holding my breath, though!)

Professional genealogists.

Oh, I should make it clear hat I do in fact believe that there are professional genealogists! Yes, I do.

It's just that in this particular case, I believe the term means "will take your money in exchange for some stuff we wrote down."

You didn't mention Marian Stroub's alternate name, Gytha Ulfdotter. :):)

... Whose daughter Marigard was "really" named Elfgifa Saxon
http://www.ourfamilyhistories.org/getperson.php?personID=I18763&amp...

And a lovely romantic story about her son here

http://www.genealogy.com/forum/surnames/topics/latham/2185/

Yes. Harald Godwinsons mom! Totally believable!

There so much of this sort of thing in this tree. Tanglust OR Beatrix! Katherine OR Angharad!

Names that cant possibly be mistaken for one another.

All this nonsense. Things are in the records. We just aren't going to say which ones.

Lots of storytelling. Lots.

Oh well, if Marigard is really Elfgifa, then hey! all this makes sense

We can put her back in.

Also lets make up a story about how sad she was when William the Conqueror axed her brother. Lo, her sloe eyes did fillst with tears, as she looked down the country Essex by-way down which her brother Harald would never ride again. Alas, she thought to herself. Time to start speaking Anglo Norman. Then she did change her name to Marian Stroud, for she was fair prescient. And died.

Hilarious. And the perfectly good reputation of Marian or Marion Stroud, living in 1982, ruined forever by a transcription error.

Justin,
I am feeling lazy today but I saw your merge of Clovis II "The Lazy" who Geni reports is my 33rd Great Grandfather per Clovis II "the Lazy", King of the Franks. I see that Old Lazy-Bones is called
Chlodovech "le Fainéant" des Francs, roi des France. A lot of my Geni relationship paths back to the noble line of Franks go though my very real 7th Great Grandmother Mary Osgood (Clements) (1637-1710) who was indicted for witchcraft in Salem in 1692. See Mary Osgood . I am still learning about "Gateways" but I tentatively am treating Mary as a "Gateway" immigrant from England to North America. However, Mary was only a teenager at the time of her transAtlantic crossing circa 1652 to rejoin her widowed father Robert Clements Sr (my 8th Great Grandfather) who preceded her to British North America about 1642 so he may be the "Gateway" person. Robert Clements, of Haverhill So Justin, would you comment on how far back along the Clement line you feel confident about the accuracy of the relationship path before it gets obscured by a potentially fictitious relationship path to old King Clovis II "The Lazy"? If that "crossover" can be identified it seems to be another kind of "gateway", as is the gateway of the ancestral line between France and England. Thanks.

William, I'm not an expert in every line but this is a good question. I can tell you how I approach this kind of problem.

I scan the line, looking for "seams" -- the places where one good stretch has been stitched on to another good stretch. Those seams are the places people are most likely to make mistakes.

1. One of the most common problem areas is the jump back across the Atlantic from the American immigrant to Europe. It's very common for the link to be either someone's theory or just plain wishful thinking.

I didn't look at that on your line because you seem to be confident about the Clements immigrant.

2. A male line from the immigrant back to about 1450 or 1500 is another red flag. It's not impossible, of course, but relatively few immigrants belonged to local gentry families for whom that kind of line would be plausible. Very often someone has just started grabbing instances of men with the same name and started stringing them together.

You have a stretch like that with the Clements family. Taking just a casual look, they are all at Croft in Leicestershire, so the line seems plausible (assuming the immigrant has been correctly identified).

3. A major red flag is always people before 1600 with more than one given name. That just didn't happen. It's almost always an indication that someone has smashed together two different people.

You have one of those in this line with Richard Charles Croft, of Leicester. Taking a closer look, he seems to have documentation, although he does have a parent conflict and it might be significant that one of the three Smart Matches does not identify his father, and none of them identify his mother. This one is particularly suspect because he and his father live in Leicestershire in the Midlands but his mother is supposedly Welsh, and it seems not to be certain whether her name was Sybil or Isabel.

4. Welsh lines are often suspect because so many genealogists make a hash of them.

Assuming that this Sybil/Isabel Llwyd has been correctly identified this stretch of your line seems plausible. No obvious hitches with Welsh names. Then there's a link to the de Clares. That's plausible. They were Marcher lords who often intermarried with Welsh families. Then from the de Clares back to the Beaumont, Vermandois, and Lorraine families. All plausible. These are well-documented families. I wouldn't swear this version is perfect, but it looks "about right".

5. Finally, we look at the really old connections. This is where many problems come up because there are so many fakes and theories.

Notice here that the profile for Giselbert I says his origin and parents are unknown. Notice too that his supposed parents each have only one profile manager. This is obviously a line that's been disconnected before. It's back today probably because of some recent merge. There's an old idea this Giselbert was son of Giselbert and Bertswinde, so it's not totally unreasonable but it's not exactly factual either. Then this Bertswinde is also a bit questionable. Many people think she might have been a sister of Echard, and some of those think they might have been children of Sigrimaine, but notice that Geni doesn't have this Echard here, and she isn't shown as a daughter of his wife Landrada, and she would be problematic anyway because it's actually not certain she was a daughter of Charles Martel as shown on Geni.

If you give Geni's users a few hours or days this line back from Giselbert I to Clovis II will get changed. Users will find and correct the problems I've pointed out. I'm not going to do it myself right now so that you and others can see the problem in place.

I think this highlights one aspect of the idea that the lines on Geni are illusory. Very often, they're also temporary. Someone comes in new, adds information that at their skill level seems to be correct, then not long after someone else fixes it.

As some of us like to say, "Geni trends toward accuracy" but is not always at every moment perfectly accurate.

You can pretty much count on the fact that once this particular line is fixed, you'll have another ancestral connection to Clovis II. And, it will be just as "iffy", and it will also get fixed, and there will be another line . . .

This is the routine complaint of the people who work on these old lines -- there is almost no point in fixing them because they always come back. Maybe someday. When we have relationship locking.

Justin,
You are such a dedicated and competent professional! What a detailed response about a specific pathway back so many, many generations. I am going to copy this and colour code certain points for reference. As always your response raises more questions. For now I will ask only one. "Is there a glossary of genealogical terms which includes words such as "seams"?

Right now I need some time to ponder and study the details of your response and their implications. I certainly observe that in addition to the specifics you mention you are exhibiting exemplary collaboration that is Geni at it best. Thanks again.

Finally, there is another point I want to make. Evidence, by its very nature, is subjective. The same body of evidence that convinces one person does not convince someone else.

On another thread I joked about users who live in a 19th century Objectivist universe. There are people who believe with all their hearts that something is either true or not, and that something has been proved or not. For them, it's all black and white. Their answer is always that we shouldn't add a connection on Geni unless it's been proved.

But (1) there's a whole continuum of the strength of the evidence, and (2) no general agreement about where to draw the line:

* She is the daughter of ...
* She is almost certainly the daughter of ...
* She is probably the daughter of ...
* She is perhaps the daughter of ...
* Expert X suggested she might be the daughter of ...
* If she is the same as this other person, then she is (almost, probably, perhaps) the daughter of ...

At one point the curators debated the meaning of "preponderance of the evidence" and the "reasonable person standard" but of course that went nowhere. That sort of thing is workable in a legal system, but not so well in genealogy. Two different genealogists (and two different jurors) can disagree about whether something meets a particular standard of proof. The legal system has a formal way to handle the differences of opinion. Genealogy does not.

Re: "I think this highlights one aspect of the idea that the lines on Geni are illusory. Very often, they're also temporary. Someone comes in new, adds information that at their skill level seems to be correct, then not long after someone else fixes it."

My concern is areas that don't get fixed. For me, it's because I don't have the knowledge, one way or another, so let it ride.

And that's a problem with "crowd sourcing" - it's the other guy's problem, I'm just along for the ride.

I'd like to see more "doing" from the crowd.

From the profile, ask, "is this true? Mr. Google doesn't give me an answer with valid sounding sources."

> Is there a glossary of genealogical terms which includes words such as "seams"

I don't think the word "seams" is a formal genealogical concept. It's just a convenient word I use to describe what I'm seeing. For me, it brings to mind seams in rock formations where the whole mountain is one unit but composed of layers constructed by different geological processes over the ages but laid down together.

It's also a convenient shorthand for the criticisms many historians have about genealogy. I think every historiography professor I've ever had has spent at least a bit of time talking about how genealogists stitch together different types of evidence without understanding the cultural assumptions and biases implicit in them, then think they've somehow proven something.

For example, assume for a minute that you could use documentary sources to trace Charlemagne back to Julius Caesar. Now you start looking at Caesar's ancestry. The Roman tradition is very clear. He was a descendant of the Trojan hero Aeneas, who was a son of the goddess Venus, who is the same as the Greek goddess Aphrodite, who is the daughter of Zeus and Dione (in one version).

So, have you really proved that you're a descendant of the Greek gods? No. It's two different bodies of tradition, two different kinds of evidence. It's not possible to stitch them together and think the whole line has equal value.

> My concern is areas that don't get fixed.

Mine too. My thing is medieval genealogies. I often look at my lines back to those people so I can identify problems. One thing I notice over and over is how many fakes and frauds there are much further down the tree, particularly in the ancestry of American immigrants.

But oh my hell. I couldn't ever live long enough to research all of those. I have to rely on other users to do that work.

Once in awhile I have some time and have sources handy so I can disconnect a line here or there, but more often not. It really does have to be someone else's problem.