After the storms that blew through my area last week, it seems appropriate that this week's theme is "Broken Branch." Have you had to trim a branch from your family tree after you figured out it wasn't the right line? Are you researching a branch that it feels like there is nobody else in the world who is researching them? What about a collateral line that seems to have gotten lost? Click here to check out all the themes for 2022.
My major Broken Branch came in 2013 when I discovered my mother’s secret. She was born out of wedlock and her mother’s husband was not her biological father. Read my previous blog post “My Mother’s Secret”. Anyway, I had researched her entire maiden name line with my Aunt Mary. So this way a very broken branch, however it was the only family my mother ever knew and it is my Aunt Mary and Aunt Shirley’s family, so I kept this branch in my tree.
A branch that I had to trim from my family tree was the Parent’s of Elizabeth Lighthall. Actually, I didn’t trim them, because I never added them since I couldn't prove the relationship. See my blog post, “Who are Elizabeth Lighthall’s parents?”. I have researched more on George Lighthall and his family, however I haven’t found the connection to my Elizabeth.
I do remember actually trimming off a branch after going down the wrong path. I had a woman in my tree Mabel Hiltz who married Albert Salisbury. They married in Missouri and I found them in several census records. I traced her all the way to Find A Grave to only find out that somewhere along the way, this was no longer my Mabel. Find A Grave had her maiden name listed and after investigating a little better, sure enough, I found two Mabel Salisbury’s. Normally, I open tons of browser tabs, sort the tabs in date order and verify that I am still looking at my Mabel. However, for what ever reason, I got ahead of myself and added the children of the 2nd Mabel whose husband name was Al but not short for Albert. I had to go back and remove my citation entries, delete the children and possibly grandchildren. My Mabel moved from Missouri to California with several of her siblings’ families. Lesson learn, don’t get ahead of myself.
Anyway, you can see “Broken Branches” are common when researching. Remember to have fun and Just do Genealogy!
Thank you for mentioning how FindAGrave revealed you had steered away from the correct Mabel. This reminded me I need to make an adjustment there to fix one of my broken branches as well. FG was also the site that made me question where something had gone wrong!
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