If your researching somebody with a relatively common name, the odds are you have asked yourself the question "is this my ancestor?". I know that I have - matter of fact I did so just last night when performing FAN club research (see here and here for more information).
My great grandmother's lifelong best friend (Helena) had a very common name, so when I searched for her in the local newspapers I of course got a large number of results. The first few that I clicked on all mentioned her acting as the leading lady in theatre shows and silent films. This fit with the 1920's and was believable based on her age (a teenager). When you add in the fact she married a man, several years later, who was also working as actor in the early 1920's, it starts looking more and more plausible that this was her. At this point I had to stop and take a step back. One of my favourite rules in genealogy is: If it looks too good to be true, it probably is! As much as I knew my great grandmother was a fan of the glitz and glamour of the 1920's, she did not come from money. She grew up very poor both while living in England and Canada. The chances of her being best friends with a movie star was not impossible, but it seemed unlikely, so I asked myself several questions:
- How many women living in this city have the same name?
- How common is the surname?
- Would another database help me make the connection?
To answer question #1 and #2, I decided to look her up in the 1922 city directory. If your choosing to use a city directory there are a few things that you should keep in mind. Firstly, they don't list the entire population. The city directory only has the names of working adults, and the heads of each household. This means that women and children often went unlisted. As a general rule of thumb, you won't find somebody until they are at least 16-18 years old (likely older for women). Secondly, the directories are normally at least one year out of date when they are published. (Yep that's right! The 1922 directory would have had info from 1920/1921 and not been completely accurate). This means that you often have to check a one or two year range on either side of the date you are searching to ensure that you have performed a thorough check.
In my case there were no Helena's (or variations of that name) listed in the 1920-1924 city directory, but I did learn that her surname was quite common. If you were lucky enough to get several matchs, you can check out my
post on city directories to learn how to tell which one if your ancestor.
(Note the at the 1921 Canadian census was another great resource I did consult, and yielded the same result as above. If your interested in learning more about Canadian census records, you can check out the first post in my series
here)
To answer question #3, I decided to start by googling her name with one of the plays/movies that she was a leading actress for. I decided to start with google instead of a more specific genealogical database (such as Ancestry, FamilySearch, etc.) because the newspapers made it sound like this woman was quite successful. If she boasted the resume that I had uncovered, surely she would have a Wikipedia page (or something similar to that) which would give me her birth information. I was right. Helena did have a Wikipedia page, and also biographies on several sites designated to early film stars! Soon as I looked at the birth information I knew that I had the wrong woman! This was NOT my great grandmother's friend. The Helena that the newspapers were mentioning was an American film star who was born almost a full 10 years earlier than the woman I was looking for!
The situation that I have described above is a perfect example of how a common name and insufficient research could easily lead to an inaccurate conclusion or even cause you to start climbing somebody else's family tree. By taking a step back and asking myself three simple questions I was able to determine if the woman I was seeing the newspaper was really the same woman that I was looking for.
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