My name is Marlene and I started this site. It was created using MyHeritage.com. If you would like to become a member to help fill in the blanks, do some research or if you have any comments or feedback about this site, please click here to contact me. Our family tree is posted online on this site! There are 20294 names in our family site. The earliest event is the birth of Laurence de Abernethy 
(1203). The most recent event is the birth of <Private> Peterson
(June 20 2012). Since beginning this site, there have been some rather unusual twists, turns, and many errors. Until I am able to solve this enigma, it will be confusing to everyone, especially me! Given this and other family issues, there is only one way to describe our family: mixed-up and hence the name of the tree! "My Mixed-up Family Tree" The site has not been updated for over a year 2011-2012 <Date of most recent published content>, and it currently has 883 registered member(s). If you wish to become a member too, please click here. UPDATE APRIL 30, 2013 !!!!!!!! Unfortunately, for several reasons I stopped doing any research or work on my site at all. To be quite frank, I've lost interest in most things since my mother passed almost 2 yrs ago. Just prior to taking my extended sabbatical, I became aware of many serious errors and was working on doing research and making corrections in order to try and document entries in some manner if they had not been so already, which is the majority! However, most of my research notes were lost when my Dell from Hell crashed while backing up my drive. I've only made a few visits to the site, mainly to answer messages or respond to requests to join my site. I apologize for the STOP on confirmations. I don't wish to have errors in my tree, nor I do not wish to pass them on to others. This is a problem due to "Smart Matches" and conflicting data. Without documentation there is no way to determine the correct data and so errors are passed on. Bad data in, bad out! Some people tend to copy matches based on a name match and little else, or adding even more undocumented data or typographical errors, which only complicates the problem further. I have found errors in matches that include pictures of headstones with dates, and even with that information, some just copy the match and disregard the photos or any other notations, etc. I have become rather frustrated with My Heritage, and had previously contacted them regarding these issues. As you can see, nothing has been done to rectify the problem. Another big reason for my lack of interest in working on my site! I have contacted My Heritage twice regarding the problems with Smart Matching after realizing the bigger issues after I first spoke with them. I have yet to hear from My Heritage and that was about 2 years ago.
At the time I stopped, I had over 118 pages of listed errors from a report I ran on the Family Tree Maker which include: child older than parent, child born after death of parent, descendant older than ancestor, descendant ancestor age mismatch, wrong designation of husband and wife, died too old, alive but too old, parent too young, parent too old, large spouse age difference, married too young, too young to be spouse, multiple marriages of same couple (duplicate entries), maiden name similar to married name, inconsistent name spelling, alias in first name (i.e., nickname in first name field), tagged in photo before birth, tagged in photo after death, fact occurring after death, fact occurring before birth, siblings age (too close), siblings with same first name (but often a child was given the same name of an infant that died) but could be a double entry i.e., John Foss - John Frost or duplicate, siblings with different last names (could be half/step, married but no spouse attached or typographical), incorrect use of uppercase/lowercase, (usually dit (sic) names or double names), years with 2 digits (usually month and day with no year entered), inconsistent place name spelling, inconsistent last name spelling, double spaces in names, etc. Most of the issues arise from the so-called "Smart Matches" with conflicting and/or non-documented data. However some duplication issues are due to the fact I didn't check to see if a spouse already existed in my tree. I didn't think of the possibility at the time, but there could be a warning that a similar person exists which would prevent some duplicate entries. They give warnings when editing, such as deleting people or connecting to another, and preventing removal of parents from an older child unless you keep one or delete the children first, and on and on. My biggest peeve is the "Smart Matches" with completely different names, sex, and if a date is entered, the names may be similar but the dates are not close. They could be related, another generation, or no connection at all. Thank you for your patience & understanding. I may just let my subscription run out and not renew it unless there are some major changes. Thank you for your understanding and patience. Sincerely, Marlene |
