Famous Relatives Accuracy
While reviewing the plethora of Famous Relatives that comes from my line being in America since 1669…I find that the lineage drawn from FS/FT cannot be trusted:
For one famous person (Harry Truman), the line goes back 6 generations on my direct male line, then jumps to the wife of the next person up. Oddly - this pair is not on my personally loaded line in FS/FT - but does appear as an unsupported parallel path if you search for them.
However…for another famous person (John Quincy Adams), the line goes back 3 more generations straight up my male line using MY contribution for generations 7 - 10…not the 7th shown under Harry Truman's connection.
How is it possible to have connections through both routes? The seventh generation back has two different men as my ancestor of that generation? Please explain how your 'connections' to famous people have any credibility at all.
C Coverdill
Answers
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From a recent blog post about Famous Relatives:
there’s the accuracy question. The results you receive are based on the
Family Search Family Tree. If you’ve looked at the tree, you’ll be aware
that there are lots of errors. If there are errors on the tree, then
your results on Famous Relatives will be wrong as well.1 -
Mod note: For your privacy, your post was edited to remove a name that is not part of your username as well as other code violations. Please see the Community Code of Conduct.
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Just another user here to toss in a viewpoint. The credibility of anything in Family Tree, including the Famous Ancestors parlor game, is totally up to you. FamilySearch does not do any confirmation of research or family lines in Family Tree. That is left completely up to us users.
The credibility of my link to my father is 100%. All history, all sources, all DNA testing confirms it. The credibility of my link to my grandfather is likewise totally established. This is true for a few more generations back to 1808. Because of this, those connections to recent Famous Ancestors are solid and reliable.
Those Famous Ancestors that I connect to as a 6th cousin six times removed via a common ancestor born in 1550? I don't know how credible those are and won't until I get around to checking each link in the chain. That won't be for a while. I've got better things to do.
If you have two different sets of parents at generation 7 as your direct ancestor, then it seems like you have some work to do to research and determine which set is correct and to remove the other set. It sounds like that alone will cause a big change on your Famous Ancestors page.
Also, you should be aware that the Famous Ancestors as well as all relationship checking in Family Tree follows the shortest path possible and when there are multiple parents for a person the routine completely ignores any marking of type of relationship such as biological, adopted, foster, guardian, or step. Therefore, if there is a short path through a adoptive father or mother, that is the line that will be shown even though there is no biological relationship to that famous ancestor.
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