Have you visited the website Snopes.com? Over six million people go there each month to find the truth about rumors and legends. If you want to know about frauds, computers, crime, old wives’ tales, or something that you’ve read in an email, go to Snopes.com. The owners of the website spend every day researching rumors and posting the facts.

Genealogy has many examples of misinformation. Unfortunately, few of the cases carry the clear warning that the FamilySearch "Ancestral File" provides: “[The] Ancestral File is a collection of genealogical information taken from Pedigree Charts and Family Group Records submitted to the Family History Department since 1978.  The information has not been verified against any official records.  Since the information in Ancestral File is contributed, it is the responsibility of those who use the file to verify its accuracy.”

Is it difficult to believe that what we read on the Internet or in books could possibly be wrong?  Of course not. People who write this misinformation may be doing it because they do not know any better, or they may feel rushed. In either case, they make life difficult for the rest of us because their work is copied. After a certain amount of repetition, it takes on a life of its own.

You have probably found “facts” that didn’t seem right. If so, you will want to do some fact-checking — just like the people at Snopes.com.

The key to fact-checking is to first look at the informant and to question whether he or she was in possession of the facts and if their report is truthful. We all hope Grandma wouldn’t have fibbed, but could she have ever been in a situation where a half-truth or no truth would make life easier?  Or, could she have forgotten a fact?

If you can’t verify who was the informant of if they were reliable, the next step is to determine whether the event could have happened. Typically you find that it couldn’t have happened.

When you find facts that disprove a kinship linkage or a fact, write up a statement of proof and post it somewhere for others to see. If each of us did that, we would make searching a lot easier for the next genealogist.

If you are interested in other helpful articles, go to my Columns page.

© 2000–2010

Connie Lenzen, CG^SM

CG, Certified Genealogist, is a service mark of the Board for Certification of Genealogists, used under license by board certified genealogists after periodic evaluation, and the board name is registered in the US Patent & Trademark Office.