04 August 2013

There Was No Jarvis

A relative insisted an ancestor had a son named Jarvis. There was only one document that provided any evidence that this Jarvis existed--there was no mention anywhere else. After locating the "Jarvis" document, it was determined that the researcher had misread "James" for "Jarvis."

It never hurts to take a look for yourself. That "extra child" may just be a transcription variation.

2 comments:

  1. Sometimes a child will be listed by his first name or in another document by his middle name or a nick-name. It may be difficult to determine just how many children are involved.

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    1. I have the name difficulty,slso. There are still family trees on the internet with the name Jerome Plank, I kept thinking over the years that it was not correct as that wss not a name used in the Plank family. I found Johannes Plank and when I compared it with Jerome I could see that someone had possibly misread the penmanship in a 1700s record. I am still contacting people to explain this mixup.

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