#10 You can’t join
DAR because that ancestor Major Daniel Bollman was really a Hessian soldier.
#9 The family
cemetery you've been looking for this past decade was just investigated by “Ghost
Hunters” on TV.
#8 That Mayflower lineage document from 2nd
Cousin Horace is really just a 1972 receipt from the moving company.
#7 Great Aunt Hilda,
who you have avoided interviewing, just passed away and you never got the story
of her passage through Ellis Island.
#6 That illustrious
ancestor who, according to a 1912 compiled genealogy book, “occupied a chair of
applied electronics at an important government institution” was really a convict
sent to the electric chair.
#5 You finally get accepted
to appear on “Genealogy Roadshow” and Josh Taylor kindly refutes your great
grandparent’s lineage, leaving you back at square one on that branch of the
family.
#4 You finally find
that your 3rd great grandfather, David Burham who married Dorothy
Burnham, had a mother named Judith Burnham and her mother was Martha
Burnham.
#3 A sudden natural
disaster destroys your computer, floods your paper files, and burns your family
photo albums.
#2 Your mother
confesses about the “milkman”, making
50% of your family tree moot.
#1 Your Irish grandfather’s
y-DNA test comes back as Haplogroup H
Remedy:
Some of the situations above are avoidable. Have a disaster plan for your files,
interview those elderly relatives NOW, and double check your research.
Go with the flow.
Sometimes you have to lop off a branch of your family tree and rebuild
all over again.
Happy Halloween!
Scary great post! ;)
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