{"id":2836,"date":"2018-07-28T16:03:06","date_gmt":"2018-07-28T16:03:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thefhguide.com\/blog\/?p=2836"},"modified":"2019-01-16T20:39:08","modified_gmt":"2019-01-16T20:39:08","slug":"overcoming-myths-and-mistakes-in-your-family-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thefhguide.com\/blog\/overcoming-myths-and-mistakes-in-your-family-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Overcoming Myths and Mistakes in Your Family History"},"content":{"rendered":"

Years ago, I was working on some of my New England genealogy with my cousin. One of the things I was\"\" proud to relate to others about my family history was that we were Mayflower descendants. And then the “unthinkable” happened: my cousin, who was a more experienced and careful researcher than I, sent me an email saying that we might not<\/em> be Mayflower descendants after all. I remember my first reaction was, “I really hope he is wrong about that!” But it turned out he was right: we had confused one of our ancestors with another person of the same name, who was the real Mayflower descendant, and he had documented the proof.<\/p>\n

To make things worse, now we had a “boatload” of ancestors who really weren’t our ancestors. I remember the pain I felt of lopping those branches of our tree, where a famous lineage had stood. But soon I came to realize that it’s more important to be right than famous (although sometimes you’re both!)<\/p>\n

The takeaway for me: documenting sources and not jumping to conclusions can save a lot of time and effort in research.<\/p>\n

Indian Legends<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is a tale of two friends, both with traditions of Native American ancestry in their families. Both had\"\" told me that they were having a hard time pinning down that elusive person in their tree. So the legends went on for years, until DNA testing came to the rescue.<\/p>\n

My first friend saw her ethnicity results and realized there was little chance of being descended from Native American ancestors. It was a bit of a disappointment but a useful reality check.<\/p>\n

My second friend was actually a bit surprised when the results came in: she indeed appeared to have Native American ancestry on her mother’s side, and that opened up some new avenues for research. While DNA enthicity estimates are just that … estimates … they can be useful tools, along with information from DNA Matching and DNA Circles.<\/p>\n

Exploding Myths<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Family History Guide has links to several videos that can help us overcome family history myths:<\/p>\n