Holy Friggin Judas on a Cracker!!!

I am working on a project for a family that was stuck at an ancestor from Arkansas, and the research I have been performing has revealed a LOT of mistakes by many, many folks.

While I use legitimate documents I will occasionally just see what is out there that has already been researched in order try to confirm my findings or to see what other folks say and look at their documentation to see if there is something legitimate there.

What I find are stupid mistakes that could easily be corrected or avoided at the time they were documented by the researchers.

The target of the research is a George Washington Potts, born in Arkansas around 1864 and died in Texas in 1936. The family stated they are stuck on him and cannot confirm nor deny any of the family stories. I was able to locate him in Arkansas and determine, more or less at this time, his parents. While trying to take it back a bit further I have ran into these wonderful tidbits of what I call, “oddities of time, space, and idiocy.”

While looking at Find A Grave for Potts’ buried in Boone County, Arkansas, I came across a burial for Emly Ella Potts, born 17 November 1874 and died 20 August 1876. She shares a gravestone with William Fredrick Potts, born 7 October 1867 and died 6 December 1870.

Now you can easily assume that the two may be brother and sister, but according to Bobby and Carol Babbin who made the entry in Find A Grave and took the photo of the gravestone, they were married.

Yup, Emly, who died at less than two years old, married William who died at three years old and four years before his “wife” was even born.

Come on folks, you have the picture right in front of you and you are entering the information yourselves, you should have at least caught this, but apparently this couple are “professional” Find A Grave folks having entered 60, 639 memorials in nine years, averaging 122 memorials per week.

So why don’t we move on from there.

While looking for family trees on Ancestry.com for George Jefferson Potts, the possible father of G. W. Potts, I found many that listed him being born in 1822, died in 1840, and married Margaret E. Forgey in 1870.

Yup, he married his wife 30 years after he died. One person commented, “And she wondered why he was cold in bed.”

Along with this there is no documentation that his wife, Margaret, listed in the census records or any other record is Margaret Forgey.

Maybe it is just me, but even as a novice genealogist years ago (before internet) I would at least pay attention to the details presented to determine how they apply and if the people listed in the record are part of my tree or not. Apparently that is just too much to ask now.