Week: 37: Mistake

     "Oops!" Something said quite often when we make a mistake. We've all done it. Mistakes happen most often when you are doing something new: a new job, a new position, a new hobby, a new lesson, etc. And if you're like me, you've made your fair share of mistakes when it comes to your research. Especially in the beginning. The more you work on it though, the better you get and the fewer mistakes you make. Although you may become an expert in your field, there are still mistakes that happen. We don't mean to do it, but that's why they call it mistakes.
     Thinking over my own research, I think about the mistakes I personally made. I've attached wrong people to my tree, added a source that didn't below, made an incorrect assumption, just to name a few. It doesn't matter how many mistakes you make in your life, as long as you learn from them. Here are a few mistakes I've made and the lessons I have learned from them.
     When I began my research in 2012, I assumed most trees on Ancestry were correct and treated them as reliable sources. I would add information without even checking whether it was accurate. I can hear some of you now. "What?! Are you insane?!" Yes, I was. Naive and insane. And as you could have guessed, it caused a lot of trouble in the beginning. I have since sorted out most of the mess. I still run across a couple I missed now and then. Just the other day, I found one. I had attached a spouse to someone that didn't belong. I attached it because others had it attached. Many in fact. So since "many" people had it, I assumed it was correct. Yeah, no. So I have since removed that spouse. Others have yet another spouse attached, but I have yet to find any proof, so I have not added that spouse. I have learned to check my sources first.
     Another mistake I made was attaching a source to my ancestor that actually did not fit. It was suggested as a hint, and I did look over it and saw the ancestor's name, so I assumed it was correct. Once again, nope. I had gone back over my research later and determined it did not match my ancestor. The years did not match up. I wouldn't have found that out without reading the source word for word and looking at the dates. That particular source was a will and written about 50 years before the birth of my ancestor. So now when I get a hint for a source, I read every word of that source and check it against the data I know is correct. (I know you are probably thinking rookie, but hey I'm learning.)
     The last mistake I will discuss (although not the last I will ever make) is making assumptions. That has come back to bite me in the butt many times. I make assumptions from my own personal point of view and forget to consider what my ancestors may have been going through. I forget to consider the time period. I forget to consider history. I forget that my ancestor is human. I forget that my ancestors also make mistakes. So when tracing their lives and trying to find records, I was going by what I personally thought should be the truth. That wasn't always the case. Once I stopped limiting myself by my own thoughts and feelings, I started finding more answers to questions I had. Their lives were their lives, just like my life is my life. Mistakes I make today will probably make some of my descendants scratch their heads, but they were mine to make based on my life experiences.
     Like I said, these aren't the only mistakes I have made, nor will they be the last ones. I just hope to continue to learn from them. Remember that when you come across someone else's tree that has mistakes. They are only human and are probably learning as they go as well. What are some mistakes you have made in your research?