Barking Up the Wrong Tree: What's In A Name?

23 July 2015

What's In A Name?

A quick post today. This...

Nicholas Lanier Laniere Lane Lanye Lanyer the YOUNGER, MASTER of MUSIC, on FACULTY at OXFORD UNIVERSITY, COURT MUSICIAN to CHARLES I & KING JAMES I, BEN JONSON

...is not a name. It's a biography. Why would someone do this?
I understand the many surname variations. If you search from the profile it may be easier to add all of those to the profile, temporarily anyway. Though I have found that formatting variations as, Lanier/Laniere/Lane/Lanye/Lanyer, yields better results, at least with Ancestry's search engine.
I do not, however, understand the suffix. A suffix should not be a curriculum vitae. And what/who is "BEN JONSON"?

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

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3 comments:

McComberdescendantWednesday, 19 August, 2015
Ben Jonson was a famous English actor, poet, essayist etc., but I doubt he had a personal musician
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UnknownFriday, 21 August, 2015
I recently stumbled upon this blog while doing research on my "ancestor" John Rock Smith,.,great blog post on that subject btw. I have read several...okay by now.....many of your blog posts....I have a confession, My name is Sherry and I am a clickophile...I have not entered an Ancesty 12 step that begins with taping my right index finger to my left big toe....After reading here I attempted to make some adjustments to my tree, which does not go back to Adam and Eve but.....I have a lot of royalty in there!!!! but the photos are legit...wel copies of legit. I think now that it would just be easier to create a new tree with the confirmed, verified and documented ancestors I KNOW I have....thanks for the laughs and know that I will be back.
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McComberdescendantSaturday, 22 August, 2015
Many of us started out thinking that "they" must know more than we do, and (to our later chagrin) just copying what we found. In my case, the wake up call was suddenly noticing that a supposed husband and wife (widely shown in many trees) were more than a hundred years different in age.

Congrats on figuring it out (and I agree, this blog often has me in stitches). One suggestion - you might want to make your current tree private so those who haven't figured out the issues don't perpetuate things. Then you can use the parts you are sure of as a resource.
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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.

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