Dead Man Walking

A mistake I often made when I first started working on my family tree was to accept information others had already included in theirs. This has turned out to be a big mistake. It also wastes a lot of time removing the bad information.

Here is an example I ran across tonight. I was working on some Smiths in Tennessee in the mid 1800s. Another person had my Mr. Smith in their tree and had included a story about him dying in 1864 in military action as part of the Civil war. Just one problem, the 1880 census shows him and his second wife and children happily living in Lincoln County, TN. The poor guy that was killed in the war just couldn't be our Mr. Smith. 

Other things I have seen are a man dying before wedding day, or prior to his children being born over the next 12 years. I have seen a fellow only 10 years old become a father while married to a woman of age 24. A little common sense could eliminate a lot of the errors.