Date conflicts

Question

I have several instances where the Find A Grave information is not in agreement with the documented information.  For instance, I have a church registry from another country, that shows a written record substantiating the birth date of a person, but find-a-grave has a different birthdate.  Since the church record is an original, I believe that is the date that should be recognized.  What do I do about the warnings that state that the information is conflicting?

Also, I have quite a number of WWII Missing In Action casualties that have a Finding of Death date, which is, in many cases, a year and a day from the date that they went missing.  In some instances, there are eye witnesses that confirm the death (airplane crash, etc.), but the information on Find A Grave comes from a Government Publication that was put together post war, and contains the death records according to their protocol at the time.  I prefer to use the actual date of death, and add a note explaining that there is a Finding of Death applied to that person.

Thank you for your assistance.

Answer 1

For the birth date example, the original record is the one to use.  FindAGrave could be incorrect for several different reasons, but documentation from the time of the event (the birth) has to take precedence.  Mark the Suggestion false, with whatever explanation seems appropriate to you.

Your approach about the MIA findings also sounds correct.  I would mark such death dates Uncertain on the profile.

Answer 2

I have been on Find A Grave for years and when I come across those types of errors, I suggest edits with the source for the correction.  BUT, if you aren't on Find A Grave, then I would mark the suggestion false, and state that Find A Grave is incorrect.

I also make sure, as you do, that I put research notes on the profiles to explain.

As for the Veteran's, I would do the same thing.  I use the most "accurate" source that I find possible.  Always explaining my changes, suggestions, etc.

Hope that helps.

Sheila

Comments

I found a recent record on Find a Grave with wrong parents.  I sent an update to the profile owner on Find a Grave, including the Family Search URL for birth, marriage and death, since all of them had the parents listed.

Wikitree had correct parents, so it shows that changing records on Wikitree, because the info is 'different' on Find a Grave, should not be done unless sources are found to match.

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But what if the date is engraved on the stone?  That seems to be the conflict regarding birth dates.  So, one would presume that the date is correct, but I have to admit, that even my own grandmother has the wrong year of birth on her gravestone.  She had them engrave her birth date on the stone when my grandfather died. He predeceased her by 30 + years.  When asked why she picked that year, she said that the priest was drunk when he wrote her baptismal information in the book.  Considering that it was written in chronological order, and she was born in February, I find that explanation to be a bit dubious.   She made herself one year younger than she actually was.  So, if I didn't know any  better, I would have thought that the gravestone was correct.

But, what I'm noticing is not just the year, the month and the date will be off.  Sometimes the date by a day or two.  This is where wikitree flags it as not being in agreement with the dates in the profile.  I'd be happy to just make a note, but I would also prefer that these warnings about a conflict be resolved.  I'm pretty sure that I clicked "hide forever", but perhaps I'm mistaken.

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I have had that many, many times, Barbara.  I have clicked hide forever and it still comes back.  I think this is just one of the things with Find A Grave that we here at WikiTree will just have to deal with!  I have had numerous conversations over there with folks that don't understand that mistakes happen on headstones and markers.

It is frustrating but as long as I have an accurate source that can prove Find A Grave is incorrect, I use it on here.  If Find A Grave is not corrected after my suggestions, I can't do anything about it.

I have no idea how we would resolve the warnings except to mark it false and hide forever.  I wish I had a solution.

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Thanks for taking the time to address this.  I just wanted to clarify that I wasn't missing something in respect to updating the info so that it doesn't keep flagging it.  I'm glad to know that it isn't me. :-)

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You are very welcome, Barbara! 

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Hi Barbara and Sheila. Sometimes the date is off by a day or two because Find a Grave has actually recorded the funeral date not the date of death.

In cases where it's too complicated to request or wait for a correction on a Find a Grave memorial, there is a way to prevent WikiTree suggestions from occurring. Use the sameas=no parameter on the template, for example {{FindAGrave|999999999|sameas=no}}. This is not the original purpose of the parameter, but it makes sense because indeed the information is not the same. It helps to add an explanatory comment in the biography.

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Hmmmm.....I had not thought of that, Jim.  Thanks for letting us know.  It makes sense.

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I have several, no many occasions when Find a Grave is wrong.

There are many causes, first is the imaginary conversation that could easily have taken place when the headstone was ordered, something like this ' Does anyone know what year X was born, we know his birthday was 2 March but was it 1852, or maybe 1854, then the others say we had his 80th b-day a while ago, was that last year?'

Second cause, on a family memorial there is more than 1 person with the same name, the original flat grave markers have disappeared into the ground, and all the names get added to a large memorial years later.

I had a difficult time convincing a Find a Grave member that a younger person on the memorial was not the spouse of someone who died at age 50ish when he, the younger person was 20, and theoretically they had several children between them all born 10-15 years earlier. The older person of the same name was the spouse.

The problems are mostly caused by lack of attention to detail, making assumptions and not checking for other sources.

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In cases where it's too complicated to request or wait for a correction on a Find a Grave memorial, there is a way to prevent WikiTree suggestions from occurring. Use the sameas=no parameter on the template, for example {{FindAGrave|999999999|sameas=no}}. This is not the original purpose of the parameter, but it makes sense because indeed the information is not the same. It helps to add an explanatory comment in the biography.

Where, precisely, do we enter the tag that is noted above?  It just shows up as a link that triggers an error in the profile.  I'd appreciate some direction with this.  Thanks!

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Barbara, here is the help page for Find A Grave

Help Page

Let me know if you need any more info!

Sheila