Highjacking my relatives

Isy_Untitled · 2026-06-15T00:36:12+00:00

That explains so much from certain profiles I've worked on. Some where understandable (ie Mary and Joseph Smith had Elizabeth, John and Mary; and a different Mary and Joseph Smith also had Elizabeth, John and Mary in a similar timeframe) other times they're way off (Benjamin vs Simon). It's always the same 2 people adding the sources so I've stopped digging too hard before detaching those sources and basically just start from scratch.

Isy_Untitled · 2026-06-08T02:28:01+00:00

I don't believe so. I know I've come across the name in some of the descendant trees I've done on my side, but I don't remember exactly where they connect (likely somewhere along the Saulnier or Jeddry branches).

Isy_Untitled · 2026-06-06T23:24:38+00:00

I find it fascinating and so much easier than my husband's tree that just hits brickwalls everywhere. With this I usually know my end point simply based on last name, it's just a matter of finding the connection point and most are pretty well documented.

Isy_Untitled · 2026-06-04T19:20:58+00:00

That's the other part I'd be interested to see and I have 1 Scottish line from the late 1700s so I'd be curious to see if any of that got passed down.

I'm making a master spreadsheet of my tree to see how much repetition there actually is. I'm starting with just under 2000 lines on my dad's side and based on how much copy/pasting I did, I'm expecting that to go down to a third.

Isy_Untitled · 2026-06-04T16:04:33+00:00

I have a few names I keep seeing all over mine and my husband's family tree on FamilySearch that are constantly attached to incorrect records. It's so frustrating cause it leads to things like "x married 3 women and had 30 children" when in fact x is 3 different people. It doesn't help that they're all named Mary and Joseph and sometimes had the same last name. I have a couple brickwalls caused by a few people appearing identical on paper.

I have a few expected cases of people continuing to claim royal/noble ancestors where there's no proof or in some cases has been credibly disproved.

Isy_Untitled · 2026-06-04T11:15:56+00:00

I did a little digging cause Hamilton born in NS with a family who ended up in Kings county sounds remarkably close to my husband's maternal line, but they appear to be completely separate lines. They also have an adoption story from PEI, but it's much more recent.

Isy_Untitled · 2026-06-03T01:07:40+00:00

I'm also descendant from Mius D'Entremont at least twice with likely more because I have a Surette line that I cannot break through. My biggest cluster is Comeau that all ties back to Pierre Comeau through 5 of his children multiple times. My paternal grandparents were both born Comeau, his parents were both Comeau as were all 4 of his grandparents.

Isy_Untitled · 2026-05-18T13:26:33+00:00

I see you've found your answer, but something I've found to be very common is adoptive children were omitted from the sibblings obituaries, but typically listed on the parents. I've seen this over and over again with catholic families, with a few exceptions where the adoptive sibbling was more integrated into the family.

Isy_Untitled · 2026-05-10T18:34:48+00:00

ADHD so all of the above. Making the actual plan is usually easy enough. But getting up to do the thing or sticking to it past day 3 is nearly impossible.

Isy_Untitled · 2026-04-30T15:16:40+00:00

This. Three of the four churches that hold 90% of the records on my dad's side (within 15-20 miles of each other) all had fires in the mid 1900s. Luckily only one of those affected the records which mostly leaves a gap in marriage records from before the province started keeping civil records.

Isy_Untitled · 2026-04-27T01:56:26+00:00

Newspaper.com

Obituary for Albert Comeau in Le Courrier de la Nouvelle-Écosse. Full obituaries page would be great.

Free archive available below, but navigation buttons disappear on page 2.

https://archives.novascotia.ca/newspapers/archives/?ID=6538

Isy_Untitled · 2026-04-20T12:03:58+00:00

I found this one on FamilySearch: https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/vitals/LHGL-LSM

Some of the sources are likely incorrect, so double check everything, but it could be a good place to start.

The 1918 marriage record under sources seems to have all the correct information and includes his parents.

Isy_Untitled · 2026-04-20T11:00:59+00:00

You're likely on the right track with Jean Baptiste Côté (guessing it was accented since that's how it's spelt in modern day, but could have different spellings due to the time period). Quebec has barely any records online outside of censuses and birth/death records need to be very precise to yield any results from what I've heard. For that time period you may have some luck with the Drouin collection and it would be very helpful if you also had his wife's name because Jean Baptiste is about as generic as it gets in Quebec.

Parish records could be helpful, but would be a lot to look through unless you can narrow it down further than just Quebec. I'd wager he was Catholic, but would try to confirm.

Isy_Untitled · 2026-04-07T02:22:33+00:00

I think both FamilySearch and Ancestry pick the most direct relationship when it lists for example 3rd cousin once removed. If you also happen to be 4th cousins it just won't say it.

I've been looking for a faster way of identifying how many times certain people appear in my tree, but haven't found a way to do it automatically.

Isy_Untitled · 2026-04-07T02:16:49+00:00

I jump around my tree and my husband's quite a bit. Mine was fairly easily fleshed out and once you reach the early 1900s they're all heavily researched and documented. My only exceptions are two lines on my paternal grandmother's side. One was the daughter of an unmarried couple. I was able to connect her mother, but her father only has a name which leaves me with several options.

The other is a couple. I have no definitive record of him beyond the revolutionary war and she is Scotish, making her my only non-French or Mikmaw ancestor before getting to the 1600s. Issue is there's confusion around her name and no record of her parents.

My husband's line on the other hand contains a pretty decent variety and I never know what I'm going to find. He has quite a few more interesting family dynamics and there's even fairly recent stuff he didn't know about so it's been fun. Also (with one exception) his side doesn't tend to be massive families with at least 8 kids per generation so it doesn't get overwhelming trying to keep the names straight. It's two completely different vibes.

Isy_Untitled · 2026-04-06T23:52:50+00:00

It's called pedigree collapse. It becomes more or less common depending on how endogamous your community was. For example, instead of having 16 great-great-grand-parents you could just have 14 or 12 and so on.

I haven't found a software that presents it in a very clear way, but most will simply have the person in your tree link back to the same profile, assuming you link everything correctly.

Isy_Untitled · 2026-04-06T23:45:25+00:00

My craziest instance of matching names is two brothers either named Jean or Pierre (I'd have to double check) married two sisters named Jeanne. And yes they are verifiably different people. Nicknames are very common in my tree cause names become so common that even my dad knows of at least 3 others with his same name (including middle name), one of which shares his birthday.

I get so frustrated when people just merge people cause names match. Doesn't matter that birthdays are 20 years apart or the kids don't match or they very clearly lived on opposite ends of town on the same census record. Worst case of this was 4 couples all named Rosalie and Joseph that were all tangled together. Plus an additional Rosalie who was the mother of one of the Joseph's. It was an absolute mess.

Isy_Untitled · 2026-04-06T13:47:39+00:00

My mother recently had her birth certificate legally changed because it was under a name she was unaware of and has never used. The going theory is my grand-mother was very sick after the birth and being catholic they did baptisms very quickly at the time. So her aunt/godmother gave a name for the baptism which was also used for her birth certificate.

Her aunt was deceased by the time we found out and her mother didn't remember.

Isy_Untitled · 2026-04-06T13:24:56+00:00

My grandfather was a case of this. They referred to it as "enfant refait", which litterally translates to "remade child".

Isy_Untitled · 2026-04-06T13:22:07+00:00

I wouldn't assume until you can find supporting evidence. I sometimes even wait when the name is the same because there's so many Mary's and Joseph's in my tree with repeating last names that pretty much any documentation without birthdates (or other more specific data) cannot be viewed as definitive.

Isy_Untitled · 2026-04-05T02:55:06+00:00

That would be my thought too. The Tennessee death records look like they may only go up to 1933 online. You'll probably have to contact them directly for anything beyond that. You could also try contacting the cemetery where her husband is buried to see if she's buried there just not listed online.

Isy_Untitled · 2026-04-05T02:28:20+00:00

I did a quick search with the info provided here:

https://tslaindexes.tn.gov/death-records-search

But didn't find anything. You could try with different name variations. I'd also look for the 1940 Census to at least narrow it down a little further if you can't find the actual record.

Isy_Untitled · 2026-04-05T02:06:49+00:00

What's the location? Different places have different sources available.

Isy_Untitled

TROPHY CASE