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Guest ProudFossil

Which mother to record

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Guest ProudFossil

I have a couple of individuals several generations back in my direct line where other researchers have a different mother given for them. For example Jane Doe will be listed as having mother Mary Elizabeth Smith by one researcher and having mother Mary Elizabeth Jones by another. The census images show Mary E. Doe as the mother of Jane so it is no help. Further the census also shows a Smith family and a Jones family within a few households of the Doe family so no clue there as to which would be the correct mother. To muddy the waters even more, siblings of Jane did marry Smiths and Jones. Both researchers seem to have very strong reliability on their work.

 

I can choose one of the mothers as the primary mother but there is a 50/50 chance I am wrong. By doing so I remove the relationships to myself from the other line and in some manner diminish the other lines importance. A relationship would still be there because of the siblings marriages but that is not as "important" as the direct line.

 

Any suggestions on how to handle this problem?

 

Thank you all for your help and suggestions.

 

Mike

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I have a couple of individuals several generations back in my direct line where other researchers have a different mother given for them. For example Jane Doe will be listed as having mother Mary Elizabeth Smith by one researcher and having mother Mary Elizabeth Jones by another. The census images show Mary E. Doe as the mother of Jane so it is no help. Further the census also shows a Smith family and a Jones family within a few households of the Doe family so no clue there as to which would be the correct mother. To muddy the waters even more, siblings of Jane did marry Smiths and Jones. Both researchers seem to have very strong reliability on their work.

 

I can choose one of the mothers as the primary mother but there is a 50/50 chance I am wrong. By doing so I remove the relationships to myself from the other line and in some manner diminish the other lines importance. A relationship would still be there because of the siblings marriages but that is not as "important" as the direct line.

 

Any suggestions on how to handle this problem?

 

Thank you all for your help and suggestions.

 

Mike

 

I have no idea what the prefered method is but personally I make neither of them primary until I have more information. This serves as a reminder that there is work to be done on this line but still shows the sources other researches have worked with. Of coarse I tend to error on the side of caution and rarely add anyone to the tree that I can't cite a source I've personally seen or an interview I've conducted so I may take the overly cautios route when it comes to others work.

 

Alison

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