Barking Up the Wrong Tree - What to Do?

Hub's grandfather Bert Holden 1918-2000

If you haven't had this happen yet, you probably will. Your ancestor, perhaps your great-great grandpa, whose lineage you've traced for a decade, turns out to not be your great-grandpa.  Uh-oh. Now what?

* Do you throw your hands up in the air and exclaim "That's it! I give up!"

* Do you slump down in your chair, hang your head and moan "Woe is me, all my hard work down the drain"

* Do you pump your first and yell "Yippee - what fun! Now I have a whole new line to trace!"

* Do you take a deep breath, pause, and then calmly say to yourself "I better be really sure about this before I venture off on a new tangent"

Hubs and I faced this dilemma a year or so ago, and opted for reactions 3 and 4. It can happen for many reasons. It can be quite dramatic such as an illicit birth or it can be very mundane - human error. Perhaps there was a hidden affair - a baby born to a married couple but not the husband's child. Perhaps you, the researcher, simply made an assumption that turned out to be incorrect.

Elsie Markham Holden
hubs' great-grandmother 1898-1993

In our case with hubs' great-grandfather, we had no idea we had the wrong man until DNA tests were done. They proved conclusively that hubs' great-grandmother's child was born to a different man than her husband.

We weren't shocked, or horrified, and we did not judge his great-grandma. Why would we? We don't know if she hid the truth from her husband or she told him. We don't know the circumstances but we did feel a twinge of guilt that her long-held secret was now out. She certainly hid it from her children and grandchildren but here we were uncovering it and exposing it to the universe.

But I confess that most of what I felt was excitement at having an entire new line of people to find for hubs.

We've spent quite a bit of time now on Bert's new paternal lineage (Cooper). We know his father was one of two men who were nephew and uncle, so we have a two-pronged research. I don't know if we will ever know for sure which man was the father but we have a theory.

As for our original research into the wrong family (Holden), I've saved it all in case anyone is ever looking for the family in Ontario. I have a lot I can share! 

Do you have a story?