One of the biggest problems is inaccurate transcriptions of records, intentional and unintentional inaccurate information given by the person themselves, and misleading information being supplied by researchers.
An example of someone unintentionally (as far as i can tell) providing inaccurate information is my great-great grandmother's sister Mary Anne Lyle. Mary Anne according to my local church records was born on 21 September 1856. According to the 1901 census she was 34, which would mean she would of had to have been born in 1867. Worse yet in the 1911 census her age is stated as 50. That's an increase of 16 years in 10 years! It would also mean she'd have been born in 1861. Luckily i have her baptism record which states her birth from my local church - otherwise i'd have been totally misled as to her year of birth which would of hindered further research.
That's just one example of inaccurate records. Some people copy other websites without doing a little more digging to verify some bits that are possibly wrong. The website in question is: Richardson Family - Coat of Arms. The editor of this site states near the top of this page:
...to establish that the first record of the name Richardson was found in Cheshire in 1067/68 where they were descended from Hugh d'Avranche, Earl Lupus, Earl of Chester if Chester who held one of the most highest domains in the whole country. His descendant, William Belwood or Belward, Lord of Malpas (Henry 1st) in Cheshire, had two sons, David and Richard. Richard's grandson John Richardson was of the first paternal name of the Richardson.
This is copied straight from House of Names (or maybe the other way round, or from somewhere else entirely). Whilst i have used the House of Names site in my previous post to highlight the earliest recorded versions of the Richardson surname - the paragraph quoted above is troublesome as the site Family History Monthly contradicts it:
The earliest found mention of the name Richard in the UK was in 1067 in Cheshire, where the man in question was the son of Hugh d’Avranche, the first Earl of Chester.
This informs us that its the forename Richard, not the surname Richardson, that first appears in English records in 1067 as the son (rather than just descended) of Hugh d'Avranches in Chesire.
Worse yet, The Peerage states that Richard d'Avranches, was born around 1094! This just typifies the problem with sources - we have conflicting websites, all of which provide a date that contradicts with another site. The Peerage however provides a source for its date, The Complete Peerage, volume III, which sounds more credible than the other sites that don't specify a source.
Another problem with the above is, is that the same Richard d'Avranches? Whilst Richard d'Avranches, born in 1094, is the son of Hugh d'Avranches, Hugh is credited with many illegitimate children, an older one of which may have been also called Richard - though The Peerage makes no mention of any other Richard.
Other websites to be careful of are Ancestry World Tree (courtesy of Ancestry.com) and the Church of Latter Day Saints Family Search website - both these sites contain records submitted by ordinary people and are highly susceptible to mistakes and errors - though they are still indisuptably useful resources that have helped me many times, mistakes or not.
All in all these are only a small handful of examples, and whilst some may contain an error or misleading information, doesn't mean that the rest of the information is wrong. If so i'd have never discovered a clue to my paternal great-great grandmother, from which i was able to go on and prove via church records was correct. So always do a little extra research to see if any inconsistencies can be found and corrected as best you can.
Sources
- Black, George F., The Surnames of Scotland Their Origin, Meaning and History. New York: New York Public Library, 1946. Print. (ISBN 0-87104-172-3)
- The Peerage
