What shall it be?

Serious research or cut-and-paste?

Made from scratch or out of a box?

Collecting names or building a true family history?

These phrases come to mind when I take a look at some web-based postings of “family trees.” Recently I have had the opportunity to explore certain features of Ancestry.com usually open only to fee-paying members (thank you, Family History Library).  The family trees posted there are amazing to behold, in their intricacy, scope, and detail, and I enjoyed finding familiar names in some of them.

But would I simply add any such branches to my own files, even if I could?  Not on your life.

There are so many errors, assumptions and guesses the eyeballs roll.  Even the mistakes look familiar, because I know of at least one instance where my own halting beginners’ efforts were picked up from a now-defunct publication and added, by some unseen hand, to the Ancestry World Tree.  Bits and pieces have gone on to replicate themselves like slime mold, reappearing in many another tree; there, of course, they are unencumbered by a single credible source citation.  

One of my favorite examples (not of my making) is the half-dozen or so trees that cite Vincent Batson Tanner and Winifred Gardner as the parents of John Tanner.  Winnie was born in 1804, according to each of these, and John came into the world nine years later.  Did anyone stop to think that perhaps -- IF Vincent had a son John b. 1813, he might be from a previous marriage?  And the “source citations” for these connections are -- each other.

It is not a crime to make an educated guess.  But please --  please -- say that’s what it is!  What really gets me was that for “sources” Ancestry suggests that genealogists simply cite “Ancestry Family Trees.”  Oh really? 

I could go on about  this organization, which some say is trying to become the Microsoft of the genealogy world.  Their ubiquitous Internet ads and “gotcha” signup screens can be ignored, but I do tire of the person on TV who says, “You don’t have to know what you’re looking for -- you just have to look.”  Ask any serious researcher what she or he thinks of that brainless approach.

Pardon the rant, but I had to get this off my chest.  Now back to business.  

And to all you readers who are Ancestry adherents, I know this doesn’t apply to you.  Their databases and indexes can be enormously useful, and  I’m sure you accept the family trees for what they are: providers of CLUES ONLY (however tenuous) -- to be followed up, proven or disproven. Or ignored.

PS  A note to the person who sent a comment re the Gabberts and Sherwoods.  If you can send me a message using your own email address (I can’t reply to the comments message), I’ll be happy to share more of what I have about this family.  Mary Ann Sherwood was my great-grandmother’s sister and I am fascinated by her story.  My address is on the profile page.

I wish I had a picture ...

Sometimes when I’m going through old family pictures I just stop and study a particular person -- her expression, clothing, jewelry, hair -- but especially her demeanor.  Sadly, we don’t have images of some of the most important people in our background -- they lived too long ago, the pictures were lost, or perhaps they were never taken. 

I would so love to have photographs of some of the fascinating women in my family lines.

For instance, there is my great-great grandmother, Elizabeth Morgan.  The daughter of Thomas Morgan and Elishua Finsthwait, thought to have been born in Kent County, Delaware, Elizabeth first married a man with the maddeningly common name of John Wright.  Can’t find a thing about him, until after his death, when his widow applied to administer his estate.  Within a few years (1806) Elizabeth married again, to John Cain.  Her son Marcellus, born in1802, took his stepfather’s surname. (Another story)

The new family grew to include seven more sons, and in 1826, after selling their Delaware property, they moved to Indiana, reportedly going on foot with a handcart, rather than by wagon or horseback.

Shortly after their arrival in Franklin County, John Cain died “from over-lifting a sawlog” and Elizabeth was once again a widow.  Some years later she married a Mr. Holland, but he too expired and she apparently lived out the last of her 95 years at the home of son Jonathan, in Fayette County.  Oh, Elizabeth, if I could only see what you looked like!

Another “person of interest” is my great-grandmother’s sister, Mary Ann Sherwood, daughter of Thomas E. Sherwood and Elizabeth Evans.  She must have been a stubborn one -- a family letter says she married Ransom Gabbert against her family’s wishes (she was living in Bartholomew County, Indiana; they got their license in 1849 in neighboring Franklin County) and went with him to live in Missouri, where a lot of the Gabbert clan had already settled.  Reportedly she never looked back, and did not even respond to letters from relatives. The only record of family contact is found in the 1860 census, which shows her brother John Sherwood enumerated in her Missouri household (and also counts him at his Indiana home).

Mary Ann’s husband died  shortly after this visit.  But within a few years, while his estate matters dragged on (don’t they always?) she signed her name to a court petition as Mary Ann Bradshaw.  She had married Alexander Bradshaw, and they are found in Ft. Scott, Kansas, in the 1870 census;  in their household are two Gabbert boys and a new Bradshaw child, Nancy Jane.  What happened after that is still a mystery.  It is known that the young Nancy was taken in by another family by 1875, when she is listed as Jennie Bradshaw.  What became of Nancy Jane/Jennie’s parents is still unknown. 

Mary Ann, if I could just get a glimpse ...