Old hand writen family tree

+4 votes
159 views
My somewhat senile grandmother has told me for years she had this old family tree that was done by a genealogist years ago. Just recently she was moved out of her house to live with my sister. Upon packing things up we discovered 3 family trees that had been done , one from done in the 1980s and the 90s and 2012. She wouldn't let me take them from her sight so I quickly got some cell phone shots before they got squirreled away again.  These have branches of family trees I cant find online to verify and one appears to be a handwritten copy from a bible going way way back. I would like to share these they contain surnames, chapman, taylor, burton. Some of them supposedly go back pre 1700s. As a new user I would like some advice on how to proceed.  There is approximately 40 pages in total. The odds of me getting better photos is unlikely until she passes on. They are all readable and I stashed them on google drive as a backup.
in The Tree House by Jacob Overton G2G Crew (440 points)
As other have pointed out, be very careful with these family trees. They are great keepsake, and may be invaluable to your research efforts, but without primary sources we should treat these relationships as a myth needing to be proven.

Would you happen to have Orinda (Orenda) in your tree already? I may be able to help with that line just a bit.
I haven't seen that name come up yet 20 pages in so far just trying to match any name and bd and dd to any trees that are public. There is a lot of William's, Lyman, Reid, chapmans, Adam's and some jones surnames. On some of the older 1500-1800 range stuff I'm seeing a 3-4 digit number is this an old style of reference. the trees that have it were compiled in the 60-80s. I put the rather horribly rotated photos under my images. Slightly dumbfounded I havent found a cross over yet.  Not sure how to link to open space to link it here if anyone wanted to skim through.

3 Answers

+6 votes
While I would encourage you to add what you can verify, I would strongly discourage you from adding anything that you cannot confirm with primary sources. The number of fake lineages floating around out there is astounding and the bane of any serious researcher's existence.
by Deb Durham G2G Astronaut (1.1m points)
+7 votes

Sounds very cool!  I think the best place for them is a free-space page.  On any profiles where the material is relevant, you can link to the page much like linking to another profile.

by Living Tardy G2G6 Pilot (762k points)
+3 votes

https://ibb.co/hsSxtDy is a page that has the original source information. And complied in 1974 or 1976.  Not sure how I would go about the free space pages there is sometimes 30-40 on each document

by Jacob Overton G2G Crew (440 points)

It's great to have something like this to spark your research. I'd suggest building it a step at a time and sourcing well as you go. You will soon be able to attach your branch to existing profiles in this line.

Edward Adams

Jacob, here's how to create and use a free space page:

  1. on the menu at the top right of any WikiTree page, click "Add", then select "New Thing".
  2. Enter whatever Title you want to give the page (and other information you want to include)
  3. Click the big green CREATE THIS NEW PROFILE button.
  4. You will always be able to find this page on your watchlist (found under MyWikiTree in that menu at top right of any page) by clicking the Free Space Profiles tab on your watchlist page.
You can upload the image files there and you can connect any profiles you want to each image by editing an image page and selecting the profiles to add down near the bottom left.
Gaile, Thanks for detailing the process.

Adding a reminder to all that likely does not apply in this case, do not post materials that are covered by a copyright restriction. If in doubt, always check with the copyright owner.
Theres the full path to that Edward Adam's to me in these documents , if the information is valid . And somewhere  in the older stuff supposedly  older then that
Hi Jacob,

Welcome to WikiTree!

If the genealogist included the sources from their research (they should have if they were being paid), you should be able to verify whether the information is valid, when you find the original sources. If not, you'll need to try to find the sources of the information, but at least you have some hints for trying to find them. And be sure to cite your sources as you add to profiles here the facts that you're able to verify.
A lot of the pages list family notebook, family record or bible. Most of the stuff with people born after 1880 I see interview or personal recollections.  Since these are basically compilations of those original sources.  Of course I dont have or have never seen those original sources if they even still exist now.  Would I be technically just digitizing already sourced material or would I need to resource it completely,  From my grandmothers recollection she believes the original compiler of the information passed away many years ago, so no shortcut of just getting in contact with them.  Or would these 30-40 year old trees technically be a source now?  Some she has the originals, some are lithographs and others look like they were typed out easy reader versions .  One of the documents I found amusing found a listing under my parents of pregnant with STILL unnamed 3rd child .
Any time you add a profile to WikiTree you should source it yourself. FamilySearch has many online databases that are free to access, and it is often easy to source early New England/Colonial profiles. That said, the further you go back the more difficult it becomes.

This Adams line seems to be fairly well documented and already exists with sourcing on WikiTree so, other than building your branch to connect to it, I don't see much that you can add there unless you locate additional primary sources for the earlier generations.

"STILL unnamed" LOL!

The fact that a family tree is 30-40 years old doesn't make it any more accurate than one compiled recently. What's important in each case is the evidence/sources that were used to compile the facts presented in the compilation.

There are examples of how to source family bibles and second hand information, such as interviews or personal recollections, on the Source Help page. As with any source, if you can gain access to the family bible or an image of it, you can view/transcribe the information from it yourself and include that information as an abstract of the source. You may also want to upload the bible page image(s) if you have any. If not, try to include in your source definition who transcribed the info that you do have and the current/last known location of the family bible. In any case, make sure not to disclose any private information of living individuals.

For facts that aren't supported by primary sources, you may need to mark them as uncertain. Try to be as clear and as accurate as you can about the source and which fact(s) it support(s) when defining it. For example, I've seen many 17th and 18th century profiles, sourced with a single statement such as "first-hand knowledge" or "personal recollection" of a WikiTreer. That can only be an accurate source definition if the WikiTreer witnessed all the events/facts presented in the profile, which is obviously not possible. Documenting the source of a particular fact is important. If conflicting information is found later, the evidence supporting each conflicting fact can be evaluated.

For Pre-1700 profiles, see the guidelines here.

Busy with work and finally sat down to go through more pages. I picked random pages to see if they held water or were completely off. I picked the John Adam's adams-66 from 1968, the current wiki tree for him is nearly identical. I went back and forward 3 generations (these old trees hold 6) Most of the differences I've noticed so far are dates (ie page has a month and year, sometime I have the day or vice versa) and some of the less common branches are more filled in. I've double checked using family search as I go( which I wonder how thorough they are, finding there bits missing stuff sometines) but starting to see this may be an unfinishable task.  My rough estimate of total names on these old documents is just shy of 2000. I found the genealogists name in the tree and apperantly my grandmother  was a distant cousin and she attempted to see if she could find all her living cousins (she had the last name of williams, she had a very large task it seems). And every few years she sent documents to my grandmother. There was 2 odd sets of documents. In 1979 she transcribed some family history assuming from an interview or a family notebook of the bott family that has stories about there emigration , civil war and family conflict.  The other a rather lacking information genealogy I have no desire to attempt to verify. It follows the lyman family lineage way back. The stuff after 1500sh seems accurate but that stuff prior to that starts getting a little unbelievable . Good portion of the names and people are real it's in the open space Lyman Tree    And yes I was the unnamed child , at least they figured it out before I was born.

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