• 57%, I discovered a major error through my own research.
• 10%, I discovered a major error through DNA evidence.
• 17%, I discovered a major error through a book or article accessed in print or online.
• 13%, I discovered a major error through an online posting or forum.
• 16%, I discovered a major error because someone notified me of it.
• 8%, I discovered a major error in a way not mentioned above.

Readers Respond

Peg Aaronian, Exeter, New Hampshire: When I researched the life of my great-granmother Augusta Meyer Brieggler Tomasin, I was told that her first husband, Charles Brieggler, died in a fire in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, sometime in the early 1890s. Augusta was left with two young sons. However, I found no records that reported his death. When I was browsing Canadian records, I discovered a Charles Brieggler who married a Canadian woman in London, Ontario, in 1894. Brieggler is an uncommon name, and finding Charles’s parents’ names on this marriage license was further evidence that this man was Augusta’s first husband. Charles didn’t die in a fire. Instead, he fled the country and entered into a bigamous marriage. I don’t know what my great-grandmother knew about her husband's disappearance or how the fire story started, but I am glad I could correct the record. 

Martin Fischer, Oak Park, Illinois: When transcribing a recording of a family history interview with my elderly aunt, I listed her mention of an ancestral town as “Von Grobitz.” In my family tree file, I listed Gröbitz in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, as the town. I even contacted an archive near that town to see if they had any records related to my family. When my research yielded no results, I moved on to other lines. Years later, I was contemplating the pronunciation of German words containing the letter "w" and realized that I had misinterpreted my aunt's recording. She was actually referring to Wongrowitz, Posen, Prussia, which today is Wagrowiec, Pila, Poland. 

Cyndy Bell, Townshend, Vermont: While researching my father's family, I discovered that his great-grandfather's brother's death was erroneously reported in Return to Yesterday: A History of Wardsboro, Vermont (1980) by C. S. Streeter. According to Streeter, the brother, Justin Jared Newell (1833-1923), died March 4, 1864. Justin had left Vermont after 1850 and gone west. My sister found a newspaper clipping in my mother’s old papers that reported Justin came to Vermont from Minnesota to attend his brother Oscar's 50th anniversary party in 1911. This was proof that Justin did not die in 1864. 

Alice Murphy, Boston, Massachusetts: In online family trees, profiles of my ancestor Christian Bumgardner, who died in 1795 in Augusta County, Virginia, contained a hodgepodge of counties, wives, and military service, but everyone agreed that his father was Hans/John Bumgardner of Stony Lick, Virginia. Doubt crept in for me when I figured out that Hans was Mennonite. Our Bumgardners were Lutheran. I realized that these profiles must be confusing two different Christian Bumgardners. My proof was that Hans’s son Christian signed deeds in neat Germanic script while “our” Christian signed with a loopy “O.” That was the break I needed to untangle them: our Christian was a poor Lutheran wagoner who left Strasburg for Augusta County in 1783 and the other Christian was a prosperous Mennonite farmer who stayed near Stoney Lick. The next hurdle? Getting the word out!