Working on family history at WikiTree has been very helpful. WikiTree is free and doesn't require much but strongly encourages good documentation in various ways. They have standards. There are professional genealogists there who are constantly checking the enormous database of profiles and family trees aiming for the best data possible. One of the things they provide is a list of suggestions which indicate errors like creating a profile with incomplete information like birth and death dates, parents, etc. Many of you reading this, relatives of mine, have posted your "family trees" online filled with mistakes and bad information. Someone can't be married before they're born, or after they've died, and yet some of you haven't checked dates to see if what you've been told by someone else in the family could actually be true. Another error that happens is having tunnel vision that makes you believe there is only one person with a particular name, your relative or ancestor. So, you don't see that you have one person in two places at the same time, thinking that can happen. If someone is on a specific census in northern New York and you find the same person on the same census in western New York, chances are they're not the same person but two people with the same name. Duh. I've had several arguments with other researchers of my families who refuse to see that. I strongly recommend that you NOT put your family information online unless you have specific documentation: birth, marriage and death records, which prove you have the correct information. I already know that you'll ignore this because some of you don't believe that facts are facts and anything else is misinformation.
On to the Wormuth One-Name Study.
The reason I mentioned the WikiTree suggestions is that I try to check them, from time to time, and try to correct whatever is inaccurate or unclear in the profiles referred to. Yesterday, I found two suggestions about a profile for one of the several Peter Wormuths. This suggestions indicated that the marriage date was before his birth date. That, obviously, can't be.
That particular profile was created by someone else but it's in my suggestion list because I had attached the Wormuth One-Name Study badge to it. WikiTree is a collaborative web site; the profiles may be created by and managed by one person but, anybody can edit them. So, I fiddled around with the profile, did a little quick checking and made some changes so the dates should no longer be an issue. Once done, I indicated, in the suggestion, that I had corrected the profile.
But, is that Peter Wormuth -- in this case Peter Wormouth -- in our family tree? Unsure. We have, so far, three Peter Wormuths in our family tree: Peter, father of Joseph, my great great great grandfather; Peter, his son, brother of Joseph; and Peter, son of Stephen, grandson of the senior Peter. However, I have no actually documentation that even those three Peters are related to me. I also have, as yet, no way of knowing if the profile that I "fixed" is a Peter that's related or if he's one of the Peters already in our family tree.
In addition to the three Peter Wormuths in our family tree, I've found the following:
A Peter Wormuth in Chenango County.
A Peter Wormuth in Montgomery County.
A Peter Wormuth in Ulster County.
Our senior Peter Wormuth was in Sullivan County.
A Pieter Warmoeth married in German Flatts, Herkimer County.
A Peter Wormouth who fought in the Revolution.
At the moment, the information on each of these Peter Wormuths is so incomplete that it's unclear if anyone of them are the same person or if any of them belong in our family tree, or how they're related, if they are.
So, what's necessary to figure this out?
To begin with, I have to find whatever documentation there is, for each of them and compare their birth, marriage and death dates to figure out who's who.
So, come back to see what I've been able to find out. It might take a while.
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