Oddquine
20-May-11, 00:27
This isn't a specific query, more of a general observation......not prompted by anything I have read on here particularly, but from what I have read on various forums with genealogy sections which I read as a guest, and family trees I have come across online.....but I'd be interested in the take of others as to the veracity of anything at all before 1855.
Way I look at it is that before 1855, nothing is certain unless there has been a birth/marriage/death in/after 1855 where you get reasonably accurate information (allowing for errors in the info input....Garbage In Garbage Out did not start in the computer age) .
Before 1855, not everybody could afford to be married/have their children christened in the Church so that they appear in the OPRs on the IGI, which do not appear to include Catholic or Free Church information anyway.....and the OPRs which are online give, from most places, minimal information when it comes to accurately identifying ancestry. So, until 1855 there must be a shedload of families who lived and died without existing officially if they have never been reliably identified in the likes of the rent records of landowners etc....and they don't give much more identifiable information that the OPRs unless the name is very unusual.
And I know that for many families there are a plethora of books written by various family/clan members delineating the clan ancestry.
I have read a few appertaining to what might well be mine from both Inverness (paternal) and Caithness (maternal), but as they were written by people like me, I'm not 100% convinced that I am descended from an Earl of Caithness (illegitimately) or from the direct line of the Macleans of Lochbuie (legitimately).because the books don't give any definitive proof of how they arrived at their conclusions.
I arrived at much the same place myself independently....but I arrived there using the IGI, which excludes anything but Church of Scotland, plus Scottish naming patterns and nothing else, on the, perhaps erroneous, assumption that my ancestors were Church of Scotland and had the money to marry and have their offspring christened within the Church....which is not a given....just a possibility.
So I am gobsmacked at all those family trees (mostly of Americans) which show they are descended from Elizabeth I/ Lord Lovat/Earl of Caithness etc and do wonder just how they arrived at that conclusion when I can't reliably get back further than the mid/late 1700s at best.
Way I look at it is that before 1855, nothing is certain unless there has been a birth/marriage/death in/after 1855 where you get reasonably accurate information (allowing for errors in the info input....Garbage In Garbage Out did not start in the computer age) .
Before 1855, not everybody could afford to be married/have their children christened in the Church so that they appear in the OPRs on the IGI, which do not appear to include Catholic or Free Church information anyway.....and the OPRs which are online give, from most places, minimal information when it comes to accurately identifying ancestry. So, until 1855 there must be a shedload of families who lived and died without existing officially if they have never been reliably identified in the likes of the rent records of landowners etc....and they don't give much more identifiable information that the OPRs unless the name is very unusual.
And I know that for many families there are a plethora of books written by various family/clan members delineating the clan ancestry.
I have read a few appertaining to what might well be mine from both Inverness (paternal) and Caithness (maternal), but as they were written by people like me, I'm not 100% convinced that I am descended from an Earl of Caithness (illegitimately) or from the direct line of the Macleans of Lochbuie (legitimately).because the books don't give any definitive proof of how they arrived at their conclusions.
I arrived at much the same place myself independently....but I arrived there using the IGI, which excludes anything but Church of Scotland, plus Scottish naming patterns and nothing else, on the, perhaps erroneous, assumption that my ancestors were Church of Scotland and had the money to marry and have their offspring christened within the Church....which is not a given....just a possibility.
So I am gobsmacked at all those family trees (mostly of Americans) which show they are descended from Elizabeth I/ Lord Lovat/Earl of Caithness etc and do wonder just how they arrived at that conclusion when I can't reliably get back further than the mid/late 1700s at best.