Barking Up the Wrong Tree: Doppelgänger?

13 October 2014

Doppelgänger?

Rule #7: When researching the women on your tree pay attention to which records you need with her maiden name and which you need with her married name.

Below are the details of two records attached to one profile. The profile is for a Mary Gotshall, married to a Ross. Apparently in someone's mind these women are identical. Anyone else think Mary might not have moved, gotten a job, lost her husband and children, and reverted back to her maiden name all in the span of a day?

1900 U.S. Federal Census
Name: Mary Ross
Birth: May 1878 in Pennsylvania
Marital Status: Married (4 years)
Children: 2 (2 living, ages 3 and 1)
Relation to HoH: Wife
Occupation: (blank)
Residence: Lewisburg, Union, Pennsylvania
Enumeration Date: 11 Jun 1900

1900 U.S. Federal Census
Name: Mary Gotshall
Birth: Apr 1879 in Pennsylvania
Marital Status: Single
Children: None
Relation to HoH: Help
Occupation: Dishwasher at hotel
Residence: Canton, Stark, Ohio
Enumeration Date: 12 Jun 1900

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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.