Introduction
Most genealogists are aware of the existence of errors in their work and are keen to track them down. For example, on many homepages published on the Internet, the author of a genealogy warns the reader: "This genealogy undoubtedly contains errors". .
What are the most common causes of these diverse inaccuracies? It's difficult to rank them in order of importance, but we'll mention a few below:
- typing errors and 'mistakes
- difficulty in reading or interpreting certain documents
- the first name, village or profession becomes the surname
- confusion between surnames in the record (e.g. the wife mistaken for the deceased)
- a lack of rigour (date of birth / date of baptism, etc.)
- an error made in an original document by its drafter or declarant
- taking information from genealogies or the Internet without verification
- confusion between individuals with the same name
- methodological errors (e.g. unproven relationships, hazardous hypotheses, etc.)
Your genealogy software will not be a very effective safeguard against errors. It will no doubt point out the inconsistency of a parentage in which the mother is 10 years old, or an aberrant age. But if you link a child to the wrong father..., the software will itself be a source of errors, often because of its - very practical - advanced features. For example, auto-completion can transform a "François" into a "Françoise", an individual to whom the software automatically assigns the female sex. An unfortunate merging of two individuals or the failed integration of a gedcom file will pollute your database...
If you publish your genealogy, mistakes will spread at the speed of the Internet, with a double "kiss cool" effect: it will confirm your mistakes - you will soon come across data that confirms your own, because it has been copied from your tree - and it can sometimes lead to heated exchanges with other genealogists - but the advantage is that you will then be able to correct them.
Sources : www.yvongenealogie.fr/2012/09/methodes-ressources/erreurs-genealogiques-genealogie-part-1/
