Yes, the tree has the wrong Mary Jane Thompson. I have looked at every Thompson born in Fiskerton, Lincolnshire. That was fun. There are a few facts about our Mary Jane that are correct, but there is not a lot of detail in records, so one must look at all the records over a person’s lifetime to make sure you have the correct person. Sometimes, it is a process of elimination, but you must make sure you have really eliminated all other possibilities. You cannot find a likely person and then just stop looking, and think you have the right one.

And that brings me to a real problem in online data today, that people do not really know what they are doing when looking at records online. I’ve seen the attitude that people should just be able to sit down at their computer and their entire tree is already out there. People don’t know what a reliable source is, and they don’t understand that someone else’s tree is NOT a source. Likewise, an index is NOT a source. What IS a source: a real document with the person’s name on it. It’s a real shame, but I see it every single day on ancestry.com, people copy information from someone else’s tree and the information is wrong! Then more people copy it, and more people, and before you know it, wrong information is in dozens of trees. And apparently people never verify the information independently, so mistakes get propagated on and on.

And even when they DO copy a wrong tree, and then attach their own sources (like, say, a census page), it seems they don’t even look at what they are doing because the source contradicts the information that they are saying it proves. No dude, look at that record you attached, it proves you are wrong, not right!

You need to be especially careful when names are common, like Thompson, and Mary. We know that we are looking at the right Mary Thompson on 4 UK census records, because she is married to Charles Allen. But on all 4 of the records, her birth location is listed as Fiskerton. So why do all the online trees say she was born in Waddington??? Most people list the source for this information as someone else’s tree, which says Waddington, so they are just blindly copying someone else. Although some people then attempt to add another source and they find the UK census and attach it to Mary in their tree, but apparently they don’t look at the source record to see it’s the right record but the wrong Mary.

So once we know our Mary was born in Fiskerton, we need to then continue on and look at all the rest of the records for Mary. Fortunately, she was in the 1900 US census, which is the only census that asks the person’s birth month and year, rather than just age. Mary is listed as being born Mar 1829. While the 1900 census says the birth place is England, that is as far as it goes, it does not list even the county, let alone the town. But put all our facts together and you can see our Mary was born in March 1829 in Fiskerton. Looking at birth (actually baptism) records, there is only one Mary Thompson born in 1829 in Fiskerton, and she was born in March. There were 2 other Mary Thompsons born in Fiskerton, one in 1743, and one in 1843; clearly they are not the right ones.

The impostor Mary was born in May 1829, another clue that she is the wrong one, let alone the fact that she was born in Waddington. If the only information you have is the name, birth year, and birth county, you need to look at all other possibilities in that entire county before you can be sure you have the right person. Yes, it’s a lot of work! I bet that’s why most people don’t bother. Yep, right name, year, same county, good enough! But… then the rest of that person’s family is wrong. Wrong parents, wrong siblings. So… yeah, dump the Thompson line back past Mary Jane, it’s all wrong.

The impostor Mary’s parents in our tree are listed as Thomas Thompson born 1798 and Elizabeth Staples born 1801, both born in Waddington. Our real Mary’s parents are Thomas Thompson born 1805, and Elizabeth Cave born 1804 in Brattleby. Our Mary did not have 14 siblings, or even 8. I can only find 2 siblings, Jane born 1827 in Fiskerton, and Rebecca born 1835 I believe in Fiskerton also. In the 1841 census, the family is living in Washingborough. Thomas’ father William is living with the family, but Jane is not. I haven’t found Jane yet in 1841, when she would be about 14 and old enough to be living elsewhere as a servant/apprentice.

Thomas and Elizabeth had only the 3 children, as far as I can tell. In 1851 they lived in Skellingthorpe, then in 1861 and 1871 they lived in Lincoln. I haven’t found them in 1881 yet. I will continue on researching this line and see what else I can find.

I’m almost afraid to start really verifying the Allen line, considering how our Chapmans were wrong earlier than about 1860 and the Thompsons were wrong earlier than about 1830. The family tree will look VERY different when I’m done!