Lives of the First World War - O Dear!

[rolt968]

I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later.   I looked at what I think is meant to be the entry for a man I am researching. Alas who ever made the entry has confused him with another man with the same name. (No names no pack drill.)

RM

[Keith_history_buff]

That will be very common. It was crowdsourced, and has those strengths and weaknesses.

If you can cross-reference back to primary sources, it is good that the crowdsourcer in question has been following the source-based philosophy that was encouraged. If there's no source-based attribution, then take it with a pinch of salt.

In that regard I don't see it as any different to wikipedia, which is much maligned, but is merely a repository of source data that may or may not have been sourced properly, it depends on a case-by-case basis.

[Buffnut453]

Yeah....Lives of the First World War has so much potential, both positive and (alas) negative.  

To accentuate the positive, I did have a major success on there finding an observer, Allen Ball, who flew with one of my relatives.  His first name was mis-spelled as Allan on the entry but it was definitely the right man because the entry included a rather splendid portrait of him, which tallies with 2 photos from my relative's collection.  

You win some, you lose some.  

[rolt968]

2 minutes ago, Buffnut453 said:

Yeah....Lives of the First World War has so much potential, both positive and (alas) negative.  

To accentuate the positive, I did have a major success on there finding an observer, Allen Ball, who flew with one of my relatives.  His first name was mis-spelled as Allan on the entry but it was definitely the right man because the entry included a rather splendid portrait of him, which tallies with 2 photos from my relative's collection.  

You win some, you lose some.  

I agree. To be positive, although I had expected this, Having visited the site many times it's the first time it has happened.

Another positive; it made me go back and check my sources.

RM

[Buffnut453]

1 hour ago, rolt968 said:

I agree. To be positive, although I had expected this, Having visited the site many times it's the first time it has happened.

Another positive; it made me go back and check my sources.

RM

Yep...done that dozens of times on FamilySearch...."Did I really get that so badly wrong?"  Spend a few hours fumbling through the records before "Nope, I was right.  The other person's wrong." 

Edited 15 July , 2022 by Buffnut453