It's going to happen to at least one of the surnames you're researching - you're looking around online for a new lead and you run smack into someone's posted ancestry that contains your people. You've hit the jackpot, right? You can quit sweating over trying to find out more about this family, right?
Well, no. I hate to be the spoilsport in all of your new-found excitement, but just because someone else has posted a family tree online doesn't make it the truth. You'd be surprised that, if asked, that someone else saw it somewhere else and copied it without verifying one bit of data on it.
But by all means make a note of it. Just follow up on it yourself.
One of Bear's (my husband) surnames is a heavily researched one, with one line in particular documented back to the 1500s. I am able to follow this line from Bear to about the mid 1700s. A researcher, with credentials and a book on the surname to his name, has that mid 1700s family in his research, and I am happily thinking that I've found the line going back to England. I join the surname society, giving the line I've just researched as my verification and tie it in with the line going back to the 1500s.
Only it doesn't tie in. Within two years, other researchers dispute and effectively disprove that Bear's line is part of the 1500s England line. I am basically still at the same point on this line - I have not yet come across the father that will take me further back into the early 1700s.
After this happened, I no longer accept as gospel posted ancestries until I have a chance to check it out for myself. I've gotten a lot of good leads and added several generations by taking a cue from them, but you need to do your own work on the information before claiming them.
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