Keeping Up With the Joneses

Here's one way I find potential blog fodder. I search Ancestry.com for public tree photos for a common surname and look for flags or coats of arms images. Within minutes I will have found a tree full of zombies, premature births, and other illogical profiles. It never fails. Inevitably it will also be a tree that is wasting space with useless iconography that has been uploaded hundreds of times.
Today I searched for Jones and Johnson. For each name I clicked the first flag in the search results and ended up in the same tree. Here is just one page from that tree's media gallery:

Over 40,000 images and I would bet about 30,000 of those could be narrowed down to 50 if the tree owner would just attach more than one profile to each image.
For those of you who noticed the page number, no, I didn't click through all 735 pages to get to this one. I chose a random page. You can do this quickly in any media gallery with three easy steps.
1. Click to page 2 in the media gallery.
2. Go to the address bar and change the last number (which should be a 2 if you followed step #1) to whatever page you want to jump to.
3. Hit enter.
If you want to take a look through a media gallery on a public tree go to any page on that tree. You'll see the address starts with http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/ followed by a number. That is the tree's id number. Delete everything following that id number and add /media. Hit enter and you'll be taken to that tree's media gallery.
You've probably already guessed that my next post will be a profile from the tree that goes with the above media gallery ;-)


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King Charlie

NEW RULE: You cannot claim an ancestor until you can spell their name properly.

Title of photo: line leads to Charlemeagne
Uploaded to: Henry Cooke (1690-1772)
Attached to: Over 100 other trees

 

Thanks to Kristin for the link ;-)
If you have a photo or profile to suggest please email the link to buwtree(at)gmail(dot)com.


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RELATED POST: King Charlie II

How is this useful?

I have not resized these photos but the tree owner might want to consider doing just that. Of course these are not the only miniature images on this tree, they are just examples. There are lots of original documents on this tree that are completely useless.

Thanks to Janet for the link to this media gallery ;-)
If you have a photo or a profile to suggest please send a link to buwtree(at)gmail(dot)com.

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Civil War Zombie Corps 5

 Robert Christopher Freeman
 B: 27 Jun 1748 in Tarrant Crawford, Dorset, England
 D: 27 Oct 1803 in York, York, South Carolina, United States

 FATHER
 Ralph Freeman, b. 1549 in High Ferrers, Derbyshire, , England
 MOTHER
 Unknown

 SPOUSE & CHILDREN*                  *all born in South Carolina with the Freeman surname
 Margaret McKnight
 B: Jul 1757 in Ulster, Antrim, Ireland
 D: 22 Jul 1813 in York, York, South Carolina, United States
 ✿ Allen, b. 1771
 ✿ Margaret, b. 1782
 ✿ Sarah, b. 1783
 ✿ Eleanor, b. 1794
 ✿ William, b. 1796
 ✿ Robert C, b. 1798
 ✿ Sarah, b. 1820

 SOME RECORDS ATTACHED
 ✿ England & Wales Christening Records, 1530-1906
    Robert Christopher Freeman, 8 Oct 1749 in Tarrant Crawford, Dorset, England; Father - Robert Freeman, Mother - Catherine
 ✿ Family Data Collection - Individual Records
    Sarah Freeman, b. 1783 in York County, South Carolina to Christopher Freeman and Margaret Mcknight; married Silas C Stallings in 1800; d. 1856 in Blount County, Alabama;

 ✿ U.S., Civil War Soldier Records and Profiles, 1861-1865
    C Freeman; Rank - Private; State - Tennessee

ⓑⓐⓡⓚⓘⓝⓖ  ⓤⓟ  ⓣⓗⓔ  ⓦⓡⓞⓝⓖ  ⓣⓡⓔⓔ

I just love it when people attach records without actually looking at them. The profile shows Robert's father's name as Ralph. No, please don't bother to look at the record. It couldn't possibly be correct or include additional information (i.e. his mother's name). It could also lead you to a father who wasn't 199 years old when Robert was born. We can't have that.
And a record for Robert's child? Sure add that. Makes perfect sense to add that to his profile and not, by the way, to her profile. Neither Sarah has records attached. Maybe if they did someone would have noticed that the second Sarah was born after both parents were dead.
Then there's the Civil War record. Always a logical choice for someone who died in the early 19th century. The surnames are the same so it has to be the same person, right?
Sigh.

Thanks to Linda for the link to this profile ;-)
If you have a profile or photo to suggest please send a link to buwtree(at)gmail(dot)com.

PREVIOUS POST: Nearly, but NO!
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Nearly, but NO!

A couple of notes before the post. First, if you've emailed since New Year's Day I'm sorry I haven't responded! I've gotten behind on answering emails to my blog address. I'm planning on going through those this week. Second, the title of this post is a line from Phantom of the Opera. Hearing the show 8 times a week I can probably recite the entire book. Unfortunately I have no idea what's happening because we can't see anything from the pit. So the title is just to amuse myself ;-)
Okay, on to the post...

 Timeline and Records for Minnie Gertrude Donaldson

 1870 Birth in Illinois
 1880 Residence in Fillmore, Montgomery, Illinois
         U.S. Federal Census: Minnie Donaldson, born abt 1871 in Illinois

 1892 Marriage to Elijah Harvey Randles
 1900 Residence in Fillmore, Montgomery, Illinois
         U.S. Federal Census: Minnie G Randle, born Nov 1870 in Illinois
 1910 Residence in Ricks, Christian, Illinois
         U.S. Federal Census: Minnie Randle, born abt 1871 in Illinois
 1920 Residence in Spring Valley, Shannon, Missouri
         U.S. Federal Census: Minnie Randle, born abt 1871 in Illinois
 1923 Death
         Find A Grave Index, Missouri
         Minnie G Randle, 1872-1923 [memorial includes a photo of the stone]
 1925 Residence in Brooklyn, Kings, New York
         N.Y. State Census: Minnie G Donaldson, born abt 1870 in United States
 1935 Residence in Lincoln, Lancaster, Nebraska
 1940 Residence in Lincoln, Lancaster, Nebraska
         U.S. Federal Census:  Minnie Donaldson, born abt 1870 in Illinois
 [no date] Burial in Summersville, Texas County, Missouri
         Find A Grave Index, Missouri         Minnie G Randle, 1872-1923 [memorial includes a photo of the stone]

Some info not included above, mostly because I couldn't figure out how to show it without it looking like the jumbled mess that it is. From census info Minnie and Elijah have at least 4 children. The profile on this tree shows one. After Minnie rises from the dead and moves to New York she is living with her 6 children who all have the Donaldson surname. When she moves to Nebraska she's living with her brother, Alex Lendberg. Makes perfect sense.
In the last couple of days the tree owner has deleted the events after death so maybe there's hope. The records are still attached which means everyone else who has Minnie Gertrude Donaldson in their tree will be getting those records as hints. How many of them will attach the records without a thought?


Thanks to Shirley for the link to this profile ;-)

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