Saturday, September 17, 2011

Misinformation

Whatever you do when dancing with the ancestors, do not let some one's misinformation stop you in your tracks.

Example - my great-great-great grandfather John Halterman (or Holtman, Haldiman, Haldeman, Hallerman).

I did a simple Google search - John Halterman, son of Christian Halterman - and came across a website that totally dismissed John Halterman as being Christian's son. Totally! Dismissed! Okay, the site did reference another site that listed John as one of Christian's sons, but then went on only to deal with the other children of Christian and his wife Eve, totally omitting any reference to John. Totally! Dismissed!

Well, being the stubborn individual that I am . . . I kept digging around and - voila - came across the last will and testament for Christian Haldeman that listed all of his children, including John, and his wife. HA! Yes, that's me being snarky at the other researcher who failed to keep digging.

Dancing with the ancestors isn't easy. It takes a lot of work, patience, and definitely perseverance. Dig, dig, dig, and then dig some more. Somewhere - in this age of technology - out there, is the information you need to confirm your descent. Somewhere.

Then again, sometimes, you just can't find it, but . . . my experience so far is, that if you keep digging, you'll probably find what you're looking for.

And, as I have said repeatedly in this blog, the reason to add all the siblings of your ancestors, is to help fellow researchers as they're dancing with the ancestors. The more information out there, the easier it is to confirm the information about your own ancestors.

Prior to finding the last will and testament of Christian Haldeman (Haltiman, whatever), I had the list of his children . . . which were confirmed as I read through the excerpt from his will.

So . . .

. . . put the information out there, people, if not when you first build your tree, then later as you dig deeper into each family name.

S

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