I had a genealogy for my maternal grandfather , George Eugene Gibbs, that he had worked on himself. When I first became interested in my family tree, I followed this. There was a family tradition regarding his g grandfather, Peter. His last name,the tale had it, was 'Putnam' and that he was a cousin of Israel Putnam, who was active in the Salem Witch Trials. I dutifully followed this lead, finding a plausible family line except that the wife's was different than the name my grandfather had recorded. I looked for the records until I had nowhere else to go and finally did include the information in the family tree that I was working on.
It was around Christmas time and I worked on an intricate report, with family crests, historical records, etc. This was the present I gave my children, nieces and nephews. I printed it out and put it in fancy folders and proudly presented it to them .
Still ,I continued trying to find the 'Israel Putnam' records that would solidify the connection. After all, my grandfather must have KNOWN. I found a Putnam family researcher and questioned him about the mismatching wife's names and to my surprise he answered me quickly . He said that he had already looked into it.
Imagine my surprise when he told me that in my family, the name 'Putnam' was incorrect. Apparently the family thought that 'Putnam' was a much more desirable surname than their actual name, which is 'PutMan'! I researched the new name and easily found connections that went back to the immigration of the family to America from the Netherlands. I even finally found a newspaper article that introduced Peter Putman as a settler. It said that he introduced himself as a cousin of Peter Putnam, but that his name was actually Putman. It turns out that the Putmans have a rich and exciting history of their own, which I find much preferable to the former.
Imagine my embarrassment,though, when I had to reclaim the gifts that I had given and admit the error. It did teach me to follow the family names myself rather than trust a previously recorded history, even if it is from such a trusted source as a grandfather!
