Barking Up the Wrong Tree: Model of Idiocracy

27 January 2013

Model of Idiocracy

The title is meant as a dig at the family tree owner,
not the person in the photos.
It's not her fault someone used photos of her in an idiotic way.
She looks great for a centuries old zombie.

All of the photos after the jump are attached to a single tree.

ⓑⓐⓡⓚⓘⓝⓖ ⓤⓟ ⓣⓗⓔ ⓦⓡⓞⓝⓖ ⓣⓡⓔⓔ

The first four photos are taken from a single profile,
a woman with the Henderson surname born in Scotland in 1548.
They are not titled nor do they have a description.

Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Julie Henderson
Photo taken: 14 Feb 2012
Credits: Michael Loccisano/Getty Images North America

Julie Henderson
Photo from about 2010.
No photo credits found.

Julie Henderson modeling from the Chris Aires 2010 collection.
No photo credits found.

No, I'm not making this up.

This next photo is attached to the above woman's grandson.
His surname is Thompson, born in Scotland in 1610.
It is also attached to 18 other people in this tree, both male and female.
All born between 1490 and 1741.

Photo of Taylor Thompson, Tennessee Titan
Photo from TitanSized.com. No photo credit.

All of the above photos have been attached to
one other tree with a different owner.
The photos below have been uploaded to this tree
multiple times and attached to numerous other trees.

Jon Huntsman standing behind his campaign sign with his family.

Jon Huntsman riding his bicycle.

Jon Huntsman riding his motocross bike.

Are the profiles these photos are found on ancestors of Jon Huntsman?
Doubtful. The only Huntsman on this tree is "Waleran The Huntsman."
They are on profiles of men and women born in 16th and 17th century England.

One last example, for this post at least.

Titled: Mckenzie Arena
Date and Place: March, 2011, Chattanooga,Tennessee

Page from the media gallery:

Of course each one is attached to only one person.
Here are just a few examples:

1. Man with the surname Mackenzie born 1370 in Scotland.
Attached to 30 other trees.
2. Father of above Mackenzie born 1340 in Scotland.
Attached to 35 other trees.
3. Man with the surname MacKenneth born 1060 in Scotland.
Attached to 17 other trees.
4. Abbott Crinan Thane Atholl Mormaer born 985 in Scotland.
Attached to 76 other trees.

I don't know who I find more baffling, the person who uploaded these initially or those who have been blindly attaching them since.

This tree has almost 16,000 photos on it. These are just the tip of the iceberg sinking Ancestry.com's Titanic servers. I am not saying we shouldn't upload photos to our Ancestry.com trees. I would never suggest that. I'm just saying that the items we upload should have a connection to the person in the profile. They should add something to our research. They should have a purpose.

Submit links to strange photos you find to buwtree(at)gmail(dot)com.

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4 comments:

UnknownMonday, 28 January, 2013
Thank you for the highly entertaining posts regarding people's interesting use of photos in their family trees. I truly wonder what is wrong with people who do the kinds of things that you highlight.
I also wonder if Ancestry.com shouldn't provide a feature similar to one that ebay has. On ebay, if you notice an auction includes prohibited items for sale, misleading information, or the seller wants to avoid ebay fees by selling offline, you can report the item. Ebay doesn't promise any specific action, but I assume that if they receive enough reports that they would eventually pull down the auctions and restrict the seller from continuing to use their account.

If Ancestry.com allowed users to report trees that include photos such as the above perhaps it would alert Ancestry.com to the use of inappropriate photos (I assume Ancestry.com is not moderating photo additions to trees) and cause them to pull the trees down or, at the very least, send a message to the offending tree owner to clean up their tree, removing the pictures, or their account will be cancelled. If it's true that trees with excessive inappropriate pictures are slowing down my use of the site, I'd take advantage of a feature which allowed me to alert Ancestry.com to the problem.
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UnknownTuesday, 18 February, 2014
Nice to see someone have a go at Ancestery - any descendants of Waleran the Huntsman would be Waldron or one of it's many forms our surname is definately not Huntsman. I visited their site today and every item on their list definately had no connection whatsoever to Waleran

Keep up the great work
Pennie Waldron
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MEHSABFriday, 15 May, 2015
I'm going to stick my neck out here and comment that I think the people post photos like this, or save them to their trees, are the same people that share all kinds of photos, videos, and "inspirational messages" to their Facebook page without any regard for whether these photos have any meaning to the Friends that have to view them. I'm not sure what motivates people to do this, but they must think they are doing something useful or interesting.
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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.