There are some common misconceptions that surround genealogy research. Many people who are new to genealogy come to it with certain beliefs about how to determine who their ancestors are. If you aren’t careful, you might accidentally be adding people to your family tree whom you are not related to. Or, you could be frustrated because your research is not going the way you thought it would.
First of all, it is important to use reliable resources when you do your research. Some good places to start are with the more well known genealogy websites. Try Ancestry.com, or FamilySearch. Using a government resource is another good choice, such as the U.S. Census data, or an actual courthouse. Even so, always check your research. Get more than one reliable source that verifies that an ancestor was born on a certain date, or was married to a certain person. This is a good way to avoid mistakes.
Another way to avoid making a mistake in your research is to recognize what some of the common misconceptions about genealogy research are. This way, you won’t waste time trying to confirm the impossible.
Here are a few of the most commonly misunderstood concepts about genealogy research:
*You can trace your ancestors all the way back to Adam.
No, sorry, this is impossible. Mathematically speaking, if you manage to trace you ancestors back thirteen generations, this will generate more than 4,000 people who are directly related to you. It is improbable that you will find enough verifiable documentation to prove exactly how all of you are related. Some ancestors in this group will remain a bit of a mystery. You would also need to go back to a point in history before things like births, deaths, and marriages were documented.
*You will be able to find absolutely everything about all of your ancestors, because it is all out there, somewhere, on the internet.
Nope, sorry, this isn’t the way it works either. We are lucky enough to live in a time where there is a massive amount of genealogical data available to us. Much of it can be browsed through for free, and all of it is at our fingertips. This does not ensure that all the information about everyone who ever lived can be found on the internet.
*If someone has the same last name as me, this means we are related.
This is absolutely not true! Some people will have the same surname as a popular actor, or a famous hero from history. The assumption is that if you share the same last name, then if you do enough research, you will be able to prove that you are, in fact, related to that important person. Unfortunately, surname alone does not actually indicate any familial relationship between two people. You have to prove you are related to someone else by finding reliable data that verifies it.
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