It can be difficult to let go, but sometimes we need to.<\/p>\n
That story Grandma told you about your great-great-grandmother being a Cherokee princess? That story Uncle Merle told you about his father being a stowaway in 1900 on a boat land that landed at Ellis Island? That conclusion about Henry being the father of “your Thomas” that you reached early in your research and now appears to be completely wrong?<\/p>\n
It may be time to let those stories and conclusions go.<\/p>\n
The problem is that some of us are emotionally attached to the stories and the individuals who told us those stories. We cared about Grandma and Uncle Merle and now, if we admit the story they told us is not true, we are somehow being unfaithful to their memory, denying our family heritage, getting above our raising, and getting just a little bit too big for our britches. That’s not true. We can record the story that we were told (clearly indicating who told it, when they told it, and that we cannot find any evidence to support it–if that’s the case) and go on. It doesn’t mean Grandma or Uncle Merle were bad people–they most likely were telling a story they had heard before.<\/p>\n
And for some of us it can be just as difficult to admit that conclusions we reached early in our research are incorrect. We can be emotionally invested in those conclusions (even if they are wrong) and in the stories about our ancestors we have made from those conclusions. But if a review of our early conclusions indicates there’s not really support for them, then it’s time to let them go.<\/p>\n
It’s not the end of the world to have made a mistake. All genealogists make mistakes in the early days of their research. Those who say they never made a mistake are probably making the mistake of lying.<\/p>\n
Check those assumptions you have about stories you have been told. Is it possible the story is wrong?<\/p>\n
Check those conclusions you reached early in your research. \u00a0Review them, re-evaluate the information you located and determine if new information is available. Even if it turns out that you were right, you might make a discovery that’s been overlooked in those years since you made your initial conclusion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It can be difficult to let go, but sometimes we need to. That story Grandma told you about your great-great-grandmother being a Cherokee princess? That story Uncle Merle told you about his father being a stowaway in 1900 on a boat land that landed at Ellis Island? That conclusion about Henry being the father of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3920\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}