5/1/2006
By Lauren Eisenstodt
Don't let yourself be lured into a maze of genealogical misinformation: Follow our lead to avoid 10 online research pitfalls.
You're flying down the information superhighway, picking up ancestors left and right in dozens of online databases. You're confident you'll soon have your family tree traced back to Colonial days.
But wait: Are you sure those are your ancestors? Have you stopped to think about whether the dates and places you've uncovered actually make sense? It's not hard to get caught up in the ease of online ancestor searching especially when you're hungry for a big bite of family facts. But if you don't pause to question your assumptions, you could be barking up the wrong family tree. Claiming someone else's John Smith as your own, for example, and then researching his parents, may mean hours of backtracking once you realize your mistake.
By all means, keep cruising the thousands of genealogy Web sites out there. But do so with your eyes wide open — and with our strategies for avoiding 10 traps that can lead your ancestor hunt astray.