warnings

GENEALOGY PAGES CAN BE UNRELIABLE - BEWARE !

It is astonishing how much unreliable genealogy is posted on the internet, and equally amazing how many innocent neophyte genealogists merrily copy and perpetuate errors.

For example, my Clemens family (I have not posted this family because a distant cousin wants to publish his superb work on that family) is constantly re-posted by persons who are either naïve or perhaps in too much of a hurry to check their sources, and as a result, the ancestors of the Palatine Mennonite immigrant Gerhardt Clemens, b. abt 1680, are found described as "fleeing England"; and furthermore being connected with one of the members of the English Puritan tribunal that condemned Charles I of England to be beheaded! Exciting to be sure, but not one bit of the connection is documented. In fact, it cannot possibly be true, but it has been repeatedly published so many times in the last 75 years that those who do not carefully check for REAL sources are often fooled into continuing the fiction.

Unfortunately, such problems also affect my Spunaugle family. I have seen Balsor Sponaugle (father of William 1814-1888) described as a "Hessian mercenary soldier" and he is supposed to have immigrated to Pennsylvania from Germany and fought in the Revolution. That would have been remarkable; Balsor was only a small boy during those times. On one sad site, he is shown to have at least three extra children. If you find those sites, beware !

I have posted three generations, beginning with Balsor's son William Spunaugle, 1814-1888, my great great grandfather, in addition to a page about earlier Sp(o,u)naugle ancestors, including Balsor. Everything I have posted is documented; the sources are reliable (church documents, family Bibles, gravestones, wills, land records, census, letters written by family members--not just indexes, but a copy of the original document when it has been available.) Yet I find inaccurate Spunaugle internet sites constantly, and cleaning them up is impossible.

The Spunaugle page formerly at www.rootsweb.com/~iapage/families/spunaugle/SPUN-WIL.HTM was unreliable; I believe that much of it was copied from inaccurate sources. I often received complaints about it from other family members as well as from persons associated with the Nodaway Valley Historical Museum in Page County IA. Happily, that page has now been removed from the Page County genweb site.

Likewise, the pages posted some time ago for Balsor Sponaugle's family on www.familysearch.org (Balsor Sponaugle identified as AFN:W6N7-8Q) are inaccurate, and the material there had been gathered in the 1940’s and 1950’s and was posted without rechecking documentation for each item. The lesson, of course, is never to publish anything on the internet that you have not verified with census, marriage records, bible records, birth and death records, cemeteries, church records, or whatever other documents you have available.

I am sure that these problems are common; however the unsuspecting newcomer can easily be "taken in" and end up re-publishing informaton that is incorrect, and then his work may be re-copied again and again, thus compounding the error. The only "cure" I can offer is this: if you want to see the complete documentation for anything I have posted, please contact me. My name below is linked to my e-mail address. If you find and can document an error on my pages, PLEASE let me know about it because I am eager to keep them as accurate as possible, and that is why I revise and update at least every few months.

I want you to use my hard-won information for personal purposes; but, please, remember that this is copyrighted material, and giving proper credit when you use it is not only polite, it is required.

Thank you, and happy digging!

Elaine Spunaugle Jeter

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