Could my family tree be a fake?

Question

I got my family tree from a relative, and it goes back into the 900s with Czechoslovakia, could that be fake? The names are all like this one Krok or Crack (Cracus), Duke of BOHEMIA or like Libuse, Duchess of BOHEMIA, is this a fake?

Answer 1

Unfortunately, a lot of presumably "ancient" family trees, especially ones that date back to royalty, have been "embellished" somewhere along the line.  I had one a few years back surface that said King John of Great Britain was one of my great-great-something grandfathers.  It turned out to be a fake, with that royal line thrown in to "spice it up".

Answer 2

Sure!

The volunteers at my LDS Family History center estimate that the AF is 75% accurate and the IGI 85%.

The LDS 1880 is about 90% accurate, from what I've seen. The flaws probably come in equal amounts from the person giving the information, the enumerator and the volunteer who transcribed a particular page.

In general, the further back you go and the more royal blood you run into (or Cherokee Princesses, or second sons of noble families who sailed away to seek their fortunes or men exiled for poaching the king's game) the more suspicious you should be.

Answer 3

Go to www.familysearch.org and do some lookups, that's the site that the Church of Latter Day Saints has created and it is an excellent source of data.  If the data you mention is on that site, it is possibly quite true.

Ask your relative for sources and documentation, some family history buffs jump to illogical conclusions.

I hope that helps!

Answer 4

There are very, very few people who have a real family tree that dates back that far.

The entries in your family tree that are based on the copies that the mormons themselves made of birth/death/marriage registers are likely to be accurate (they did make typo's sometimes). The rest you should view with a healthy distrust ;-)

Answer 5

The LDS trees are all "donated materials" that were created by well-meaning, but sometimes poorly prepared researchers. There's absolutely no checking of the donated trees and you have to take them all with a grain of salt. Take the tree that you found to a really good library in your area and start looking them up. Anything "too good to be true" is probably lacking documentation. If they can't prove the link to your family, sever the tree at that point and forget what the other person wrote. Anything that you can't prove isn't credible enough to accept as true.

Answer 6

Those who were royalty often had excellent records kept of them, their descendants, and their ancestors.  Just google "Charlemagne"! It will list his various wives, their children, and his parents, their parents, etc. and even tell you the various kingdoms his children ruled.

I have not seen any MODERN records that are error free; way back then there are probably lots of ACCUMULATIVE errors. (They can't even agree on THE EXACT DATE OF BIRTH OF CHARLEMAGNE!)

But, don't let that concern you; unless a DNA test was taken for each and every generation, there is no way to prove fatherhood.

So, opt for a DNA test (I used www.familytreedna.com) and IF it points the same way, consider it to not be a fake.

Answer 7

Information in family trees on ANY website must be viewed as CLUES, not necessarily fact.  They are usually very poorly documented.  Frequently, you see the same info from many different submitters but even that is no guarantee it is correct as a lot of people copy without verifying.

You usually can get the mailing address of the submitter on the LDS website  and write to the person and ask them what documentation they have to back up the information in the tree.  If they can't provide you with the documentation, don't accept it as fact.