When Records Are Wrong: Why Original Research is Necessary

In my recent piece about Resurrecting the Dead Part Two. I relearned an important lesson. It doesn’t matter what the books, genealogies or sources say—they can and often are wrong. My research into Peter HALL showed:

• All the trees at Ancestry & elsewhere had his full name wrong
• No one had his correct death date
• The book version of Connecticut Soldiers in the Revolution had transcription errors
• One transcriber translated the abbreviation for ditto as deceased

NAME

With a very common name like Peter HALL middle initials matter. In everyone’s tree, including my own of 50 years, Peter was listed as Peter H Hall. Somewhere along the line the “H” slipped in and has long persisted. The problem is the record historical records starting with the 1800 census along with numerous land transcriptions and his probate notice have him as Peter “P” HALL. Likely the “H” was simply a one time transcription error that spread like a virus.

DEATH

This one had me stumped. Again every tree had Peter died 25th of October 1835. We tend to give more credence to dates with specific days and months. Again this at some time or other was a transcription error. Old “5”s and “8”s can look similar. His date of death mattered to me because he didn’t get his pension until 1834 and I hated to think he had been denied and received it for only a year. The truth is he died in 1838 not 1835. Just to muddy the water a couple of DAR applications had his death date as 1839! The day and month of his death had been correct all along.

MILITARY SERVICE

Compilation of service records in printed sources can really throw you for a loop. Wrong muster in and out dates. Misinterpretation of notes and bad transcription can have your ancestor dying in the Revolutionary War when he did not.

WHY IT MATTERS

First off when we try to rebuild an ancestors story we will end up writing fairy tales if our facts are faulty. Bad facts lead to fiction. “My Revolutionary War soldier died in the War.” When the truth is he didn’t. If we are doing searches with the wrong names or dates we may overlook evidence and sources. We may make assumptions which will thwart our attempts. Doing a newspaper search for a death or probate notice in the wrong year means you won’t find them.

In the case of Peter P HALL he has a cemetery [really a family plot] named after him and it even shows up in a Google Map search. However the marker for Peter is not evident. One marker is for his wife, Mandana HALL and there is an adjacent stone simply marked H.H. The area has become wooded and is on private property and is difficult to find. My distant cousin was told the graves are somewhere else and the markers were moved. Since they appear to be on land that Peter owned, I suspect this removal has more to do with trying to explain the lack of respect shown those interred there. An old survey from 1977 has 3 graves evident—now there are only 2.

SOME ADVICE

Yesterday I found the record for Peter in the Orwell Baptist Church records. The whole file is only 11 pages. The pages are out of sequence and many are missing. I decided to look at each one carefully. Although only one citation for Peter HALL occurs in the Ancestry search—his name actually appeared on 5 pages. But there was more to discover. His daughter appeared as well. And then I came across two names that jumped off the page. Peter’ HALL’s son, Elisha HALL, is my ancestor. He marries a Sally Ann Thompson whose parent’s are speculative at best. But there on the page of the Baptist Church of Orwell was a David and Sally Thompson! May be a coincidence but it is certainly a clue!

Another thing that I was reminded of– is to set your search parameters wide when looking at Newspapers or resources. Sometimes the birth or death date is wrong and sometimes a person is mentioned in a article about their son or daughter when they die. You must try every conceivable search term. My husband’s great great grandmother is listed in her obituary as “Granny WHEATON.” You just never know.

In the last Genealogy Class I taught someone asked when you can accept what you have as proven. Someone said 3 proofs. I said NEVER. They thought I was kidding. You gather as many bits of evidence as you can and you build a case. But you must ALWAYS stay open to the possibility that better evidence may come along. It does not matter if 15,000 people have John JONES as the father of Lucas JONES. It may be that John adopted Lucas and he is not the biological father. You do the best you can and then you CORRECT, CORRECT, CORRECT, whenever you find new, more robust information. As I hope this shows: trees, books, DAR applications, tombstones, death records etc can and are– often wrong. Transcriptions misinterpret the evidence. The good news is that there is always more to be discovered. And original deep research is not only rewarding, but it is still possible with more and more original records being digitized.

Don’t get discouraged. Keep digging and you will be rewarded.

Kelly Wheaton © 2023 – All Rights Reserved