Barking Up the Wrong Tree: This Time It's Personal

17 January 2012

This Time It's Personal

Josiah Gillespie was the brother of my ggg-grandfather.
Comments after the jump.

JOSIAH GILLESPIE
1836 Born in Pennsylvania
1850 Lived in Lebanon, Warren, Pennsylvania (US Census)
1867 Marriage to Emma Scott (1851 - 1900)
1868 Lived in Dayton, Montgomery, Ohio (US National Homes for Disabled Soldiers)
1870 Lived in Jefferson, Montgomery, Ohio (US Census)
1880 Lived in Summit, Erie, Pennsylvania (US Census)
1880 Lived in National Military Home, Montgomery, Ohio (US Census)
1900 Lived in North East Township, Erie, Pennsylvania (US Census)
1909 Died in Poast Town, Butler, Ohio (Ohio Deaths)
1910 Lived in North East Township, Erie Pennsylvania WITH Emma (US Census)

PARENTS
Charles Gillespie and Nancy Gillaspie
SIBLINGS
Margaret, Gideon, Sarah, William, Charles, Arthur, James and Thomas

ⓑⓐⓡⓚⓘⓝⓖ ⓤⓟ ⓣⓗⓔ ⓦⓡⓞⓝⓖ ⓣⓡⓔⓔ

Apparently this person thought moving halfway across the country and back was no big deal since their family did it multiple times. Once in a matter of days. Impressive.
This was done during the user’s free trial. They decided that the Josiah Gillespie on my tree was their Josiah Gillespie. They didn’t even bother to make sure all the items attached were Josiah’s. I have a photo of Josiah’s grave but, for whatever reason, they decided to attach the photo of his brother Thomas’s grave. They are buried next to each other but they have separate, Civil War Veteran headstones.

Months ago I left a comment noting the differences on this tree and another on a tree that copied the errors soon after. No changes have been made so my Josiah, his parents, and his siblings are still on these trees. Writing this post prompted me to write a “story” with the info below to attach to Josiah in hopes that the errors will stop. For those who connected to Josiah in my tree, and for those who will in the future, the story should pop up as a hint.

THEIRS                                                   MINE
Sep 1843 (1900 Census) in PA BORN       22 Aug 1836 in PA
Emma Scott in abt 1866         MARRIED    Susannah Beam in abt 1873
About seven, all born in PA    CHILDREN None
Living in Erie, PA 1850    Living in Warren, OH
Living in Erie, PA                   1860      Census not found
Living in Erie, PA                   1870    Census not found
Living in Erie, PA                   1880    Living in Madison, OH
Living in Erie, PA                         1900        Living in Madison, OH
Living in Erie, PA           1910    n/a
28 Jan 1918                           DEATH       24 Aug 1909
Samuel Gillespie and Ann Boyd PARENTS    Charles Gillespie and Nancy ???
Samuel, William, Ann, David,    SIBLINGS   Margaret, Gideon, Sarah, William,
Jeremiah/Jemima*, Margaret                       Charles Jr., Arthur, James, Thomas

*different names and sexes on 1850 and 1860 censuses

Confession: I have put the wrong person on my tree and then done research for weeks on that person :-P Luckily I figured out the error myself but I would've gladly accepted help.

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RELATED POST: This Time It's Personal II

4 comments:

ColleenDianeWednesday, 18 January, 2012
Just wanted to let you know, I'm loving these posts...I think any of us who have worked on our family trees can relate to these profiles. I especially love the guys who move after death :) Keep up the good work!
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Blog Reviews

Barking has been "deemed offensive to [Ancestry.com's] brand" and is banned from their Facebook pages. In Ancestry's "Community" comments with links to Barking are censored.
Dear Emma, Hannah, Jemima, Mary Jane, and all of her other personalities agree that I use "the banner of 'education' to actually mock, deride and laugh at [Ancestry's] own customers" and I "can make [my] point concerning tree inaccuracies & cock-ups and their effect on our 'hints' system without being downright unpleasant and sarcastic about it."
Allen says, “your cute little blog is a waste of bandwidth at best”
Ann thinks I'm "...copying and pasting mistakes on trees and calling it a blog" and that my readers are "mean-spirited people...who like to have a laugh at the expense of others."
Sue was really offended by the “...continual stream of sarcasm and constant poking fun...What a nasty taste in my mouth your blog left me with. Unpleasant, sarcastic and jeering at people who you obviously see as your intellectual inferiors. Won't be reading that again.”
And finally from Les, "You truly are a horrible woman, pointing out mistakes is one thing but blatantly laughing and taking the p is completely out of order."

Why?

Researching our family histories we are bound to make mistakes. Hopefully we are quick to correct them. Unfortunately some people refuse to read or think before adding information to their family trees. Some trees have been abandoned so the errors are there for eternity. Here we will laugh, mock and shake our heads at the carelessness, stupidity and/or ignorance of those errors.
All examples are taken from trees published online.
I'll also post tips occasionally, though the messed up trees are a great example of what NOT to do.
If you have an online tree to suggest for a future post please send me a link: buwtree(at)gmail(dot)com

The Fine Print

1. Copyright: Barking Up the Wrong Tree is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License and is owned and administered by Loretta Gillespie.

2. Content: Barking Up the Wrong Tree is responsible for the content of this site, not including visitor comments. Barking Up the Wrong Tree reflects the personal views and opinions of Loretta Gillespie.

3. Credit: Credit is not given to tree owners to protect the clueless. A tree owner who discovers their tree on this site should correct their mistakes so no one else realizes they were once a clickophile.

4. Accuracy and Validity: While there are helpful pointers on Barking Up the Wrong Tree a majority of posts are intended to be humorous. The disastrous trees are copied exactly as they appear on Ancestry.com. These trees are being used to show others what NOT to do.

5. Images: Attempts are made to source images used despite the fact that the trees they are taken from do not include source information.

6. Comments: Barking Up the Wrong Tree will exercise its right to delete comments which are deemed to be spam, offensive, childish or just plain stupid.

7. Liability: The content at Barking Up the Wrong Tree is not to be taken as fact nor absolute. Barking Up the Wrong Tree contains posts that are humorous and posts that are research tips. Barking Up the Wrong Tree is not responsible for anyone who cannot tell the difference between the two. The sites that Barking Up the Wrong Tree links to via hyperlinks are not under its control. Those sites are responsible for the content of those sites. If you do not find the humor on Barking Up the Wrong Tree to your taste then stop reading. If you choose instead to send an email to the owner it may be published on Barking Up the Wrong Tree and mocked publicly.

Thanks to Thomas MacEntee for allowing the use of the GeneaBloggers terms as a template.