Please help - I'm geographically challenged yet again

+6 votes
282 views
I'm in the midst of adding profiles to enable untangling a mess of about a dozen people with the same name, in same place and same timeframe.  One of them is my great-uncle, but at this point I'm pretty sure it's not the one whose profile is currently connected to his father.

Now I encountered what I guess should be called a "sub-mess" of that.  I found lots and lots of records that I'm certain are all for this one person, but the information about his birthplace is - literally - all over the map.  Trying to figure it out even got me into researching insects and their habits!

All my sorrows are documented in a Research Note in the profile and I fervently hope someone can make my head stop spinning.
WikiTree profile: Morris Lichtman
in Genealogy Help by Gaile Connolly G2G Astronaut (1.2m points)

1 Answer

+5 votes

There was a Morris Lichtman born on 15 October 1866 who was naturalized in New York state in 1908 or 1910. I wonder if he is the same person or being partially conflated here. This is from this Ancestry record (Free sharing link).

That record says: birth 15 Oct 1866 in Szalholze(?), Hungary. His wife was Lena (?) and they had children Anna, Frida, Fanny, Willian and Sarena(?).

by Rob Pavey G2G6 Pilot (220k points)

Many THANX, Rob, but that is the one who I currently have as my great uncle.  He's Lichtman-45 and I found his naturalization records (certificate of intent, application, and final citizenship granting) at familysearch.  They're on his profile.  I really thought he was my great-uncle until I found his parents' names on a record and discovered he's the wrong person.

"Conflated" is an order of magnitude too simple to describe this - there are at least a half dozen people with the identical name, all within about 5 years of same age, all from Hungary/Russia, and all living in New York City after coming to the United States.  I'm determined to sort them out and, so far, have added profiles for 3 of them.  There's a conflation notice I put at top of my (originally thought to be) great uncle, and will add conflation boxes linking them all to each other when I'm done adding them all.

I'm not sure it's conflation so much as Multiple Choice.

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