Recently I was reminded that fake genealogy is all too common.
In a few books about the Bouvier sisters - Jacqueline - who was to become Jackie Kennedy Onassis, and her sister Lee - who was to marry a few times but is best known as Lee Radizwill, it is reported that Jackie's own father presented a mythological genealogy to the daughters that both believed, elevating a French immigrant cabinetmaker - a very good one by the way - into nobility. Then Lee herself falsely claimed to have the Lee family of early Virginia as ancestors. Apparently she even had a big genealogy on a wall that she could point to. As I read it, apparently Lee was so good at reporting the historical accuracies of this family, though her connection to them was not, that she was still accepted as a kind of honorary member of the family.
Ah well, what reminded me was that someone I'm related to by marriage, told me not to bother doing the genealogy for her family as cousin So and So had already done it, all the way to "Queen Antoinette." She meant Marie Antoinette, a German brought to France, who had four children, none who lived long enough to reproduce, meaning that Marie Antoinette left no direct descendants. Could this "Italian" family actually have German and French nobility in it's chart?
I don't normally do someone's genealogy who doesn't want it done, but because the children of this marriage are related to me, I put a little time into following the surnames of their grandparents, and discovered that very likely they started out as Sephardic Jews who left Portugal, went to Salonica, Greece, and then to Calabrese Italy. Could Marie Antoinette be covering up all that?
Though there are those who fabricate illustrious connections because they are snobs, there is probably more fake genealogy out there due to ignorance on how to conduct genealogical research. I once met a woman, a member of a Santa Barbara, California genealogy club who told me that she traced the wrong family for a decade out of ignorance. She had made a leap very early on, not documenting properly, and so it went.
So there are three things I want to express to my readers here.
First, if you are new to genealogy and a do-it-yourselfer, it's a good idea to document every way you can, and remain skeptical of what the family oral history is until you find those documents.
Secondly, if you have been away from your genealogy for some time, go over everything once again, making the connections where they are, questioning yourself.
For instance, I had great difficulty finding an oath of allegiance to the U.S. in New Jersey for an immigrant because the New Jersey swearing in did not require a lot of information, the surname was common, the witnesses must have been friends, not family members who already had their citizenship, and the place of birth was within the county left behind but not the same as what it said on the ship documents. Through a process of elimination I was able to be about 95% certain that the swearing in I found was correct. However, there is no mention of all the other family members who also got their citizenship that day along with "dad," and I suspected one of the children got his in another state, because he immigrated separately and lived separately. I have looked through records from multiple counties and states and records held at the National Archives and cannot find any evidence for this person being naturalized, and so I assume - but am skeptical - that he was included in on his dad's.
It does not matter though in terms of proofing his lineage.
The problem is finding that dad's lineage in another country where again I have search numerous church records and for which nothing is coming up. I'm doing everything right. The information simply may not have been preserved. The problem? He was born during an uprising.
Third, it's a good idea to have a professional go over all your research looking for information that can proof. If you can't afford the pro, team up with someone else you trust and go over each other's work.
A person who worked to help people into the Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution once told me that some members had been asked to leave because information that had been provided long ago was now considered questionable. You don't want that to happen to you.
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