Self-Perpetuating Errors

I have just been looking at user-submitted trees in Ancestry.com. Before I start my criticism, I must say that I cannot blame Ancestry.com for the errors in the trees submitted to them. I subscribe to their service, myself, and find it very helpful in my research, but I have to separate the “wheat from the chaff”. I find most of the user-submitted trees are submitted without sources. They are useful for providing clues, but one still needs to find the proof in order to use the information found in the trees. Unfortunately, many researchers just copy the data into their tree without sources. They have just filled in another space.

I found a particular tree that contained the line of John Brewer of Isle of Wight, Virginia, his son, John II, and grandson, John III. John III has always been the candidate for father of George Brewer (m. Sarah Lanier) and in a large percentage of family trees, is listed as such. Marvin Broyhill in his The Brewer Families of Colonial Virginia, 1626-1776, states that there is no proof that “John III was the father of George or that he was ever married”. About ten years ago when I was publishing the newsletter, Brewer Researcher, I offered a $100 reward for anyone able to prove George’s parentage. The offer still stands and to this day I have had no takers.

The first thing of note in this tree was that John (III) had a wife, Elizabeth Rice. He lived in Virginia all of his life, but she was born in Sudberry, MA on 4 Aug 1648. They were married about 1658 in Isle of Wight,VA. She was all of 10 years old and about a thousand miles away from her home. Of course, she could have moved to Virginia, but I doubt it, since she died 25 Feb 1739 in Framingham, MA. They also had seven children, beginning in 1658 with Peter Brewer. Remember, she was just ten years old then, a real miracle in those days. Their fifth child was the George mentioned earlier. Thus, this researcher filled in two generations of his tree without any effort or proof. He did, however, place the following note in the tree: “According to Ben R. Brewer who wrote "The Long Brewer Line" published in 1993 there has not been any documentation found listing a wife or children of John Brewer, III.” Obviously, the owner of the tree did not believe this or he would not have posted such errors. I am sure that many other researchers have copied this information into their trees without ever seeing the note.

There were four sources quoted on this tree. First, another World Family Tree. Second, was a personal web site on Yahoo Geocities which has closed. Third, a web site that had no direct connection to genealogy and made no sense whatever as a source document. Fourth, was another web site that had been removed

Out of thiry-four family trees for John III, six carried through the same errors. A seventh was really far out, though. In it, his name was John R. Brewer, Sr. ,his wife’s name was Elizabeth Johnson, b. 1640, Somerset, England. Married 1655 in Somerset, England with one child, George Brewer, b. 1670 also in Somerset, but she died 1718 in Northampton, VA.

I would like to have your comments. Please include them on the blog rather than emailing direct to me. A blog doesn’t work unless the blogger can get comments from his followers.

Problem with my Web Site

I had some problems upgrading my web site. It is all squared away now. Take a look at it. It has quite a bit of new information on the "Arrivals and Settlement" section plus some new links to other sites.

Merry Christmas

I wish all my friends and followers a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Correction to my First Posting

I should not have limited the purpose of this blog to just correcting errors in family trees. Although, that will be one of the main objectives, I will discuss other items concerned with Brewer genealogy. However, I do not expect this forum to be for queries. Use Roots Web for that purpose.

Incorrect Data is the Result of Lazy Research

My readers, if you are not into genealogy, you are not going to know what I am running on about.
Since taking up the hobby of genealogy, I have found so much incorrect information in the literature and now on the internet. When I see it, I feel that it is the result of laziness. A person should never record something for posterity unless he/she can prove it. That does not preclude your making a conjecture on data that you have if you state that this is only your opinion and without proof. The written word or the tongue can carry information that is not true. Just because someone tells you a story or you find information in a book does not mean it is fact. I believe that most family history books propagate more myth than truth. When you look on the internet at some of the family trees, they are filled with atrocious errors that are apparent just by looking at them. Family trees tend to be copied by researchers and used as an easy way to fill out their own tree. They think nothing of having no proof. In fact, I find very few of the thousands of family trees in Ancestry.com that have proof.
You can probably tell that one of my pet peeves is finding data with no proof and in error being used in family histories and other genealogical work. I published a quarterly newsletter, The Brewer Researcher, for ten years. In it, I printed submitted articles and they were always sourced. I did not claim they were true, but at least one knew where they came from and could check them out. If they were authored by me, you can bet they were proven. I normally wrote an editorial each issue promoting the necessity of having proof of the data for your family histories. One of the worst errors is in my own lineage. It is published in hundreds of books, family histories, family trees and other media. It is that George Brewer (m. Sarah Lanier) was the son of John Brewer III. I offered a $100 reward several years ago for proof of this parentage. To this date, I have had no takers. I had been taken in by this misinformation myself until I published Marvin Broyhill’s The Brewer Families of Colonial Virginia, 1626-1776, in there he stated that not only there was no proof that George was the son of John III and, furthermore, there was no proof that John III even had children. This opened my eyes to the fact that I could be mislead just like everyone else.
The reason I have established this blog is to point out these errors as they occur in print or on the web and ask the persons who publish them to defend them on this blog. I don’t know if many will. We shall see.
This blog will not be daily, weekly or monthly. I will post on it when I think something needs to be said. I hope you will respond. That will make it much more fun and of more beneficial to all of us.