The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Part II

Or, When Bad Research Stays Bad.

Okay, just for a minute, let's look at the way the children are listed on the family group sheet for Torjus Gahrsen and Guri Thorsdatter:

1. Serene, b. 1822
2. Gahr, b. 1807
3. Anne, b. 1809
4. Tor, b. 1812
5. Anne Gurine, b. 1812
6. Thor, b. 1814
7. Nils, b. 1816
8. Wils, b. 1816
9. Peder, b. 1819
10. Serine Targer There, b. 1822
11. Tarjer Serine, b. 1822
12. Martin Albert, b. 1852

Anyone see any problems here? There's plenty. I'll follow the numbering I used in the previous post to list the problems that I see here.

Third: List children in birth order. That means the first child should be Gahr, who is supposedly born in 1807. Not Serene who was born in 1822. This ties nicely into my fourth point: Eliminate redundant data. Or in this case, duplicate individuals.

If you aren't familiar with the Rules of Data Normalization you may want to take a look. While written to apply to relational databases, the principles apply to genealogical recordkeeping. And if you are using a program like PAF to record your data, you ought to understand that you are using a database.

There are several possible duplicate individuals on this list. The three Serenes are one set, the Nils and Wils born in 1816 are another. The Tor and Anne born in 1812 may be twins, but there is another Thor born in 1814, and the child born in 1812 has no death date recorded. Removing the two extra Serenes and combining Nils and Wils (Ja, they could be different, but I doubt it. Nobody in Norway named their son Wils. Besides, I already checked the parish register and confirmed it's Nils). That takes us down to 9 possible children from 12.

Fifth point: Analyze the pedigree. Hunh? Whazzat? Simply put, take a look at the evidence, and see what it tells you. So examine the information for the last child listed, Martin Albert. According to this he was born in 1852, and died 1933. All by itself, that's not too remarkable. But put it into context for the rest of the family, and what happens? The alleged father, Torjus Gahrsen, died in 1822. There's no possible way he could have fathered a child thirty years later. Well, could Guri be his mother? Not likely. She was 69 when he was born. So, whose child is he? Not sure. We better take a look at the original records. It's too bad that no one seems to have struck upon that idea before.

Now that we've eliminate Martin Albert from this family, we're down to eight children. With a few exceptions noted below, the localities listed are those taken from Pedigree Resource File.

1. Gahr, b. 1807, Nipe, Sondelee Aust Agder, Aust Agder, Norwy
2. Anne, b. 1809, Ostre, Moland, Aust, Agder, Nrwy
3. Tor, b. 1812, Tromo, Aust-Agden, Norway
4. Anne Gurine, b. 1812, Nipe, Sondelee Aust Agder, Aust Agder, Norwy
5. Thor, b. 1814, Nipe, Sondelee Aust Agder, Aust Agder, Norwy
6. Nils, b. 13 Nov 1816, Nibe, Søndeled, Nedenes, Norge
7. Peder, b. 16 Dec 1819, Nibe, Søndeled, Nedenes, Norge
8. Tarjer Serine, b. 23 Aug 1822, Nibe, Søndeled, Nedenes, Norge

I've already verified the informaton for Nils, Peder, and Tarjer Serine, but as you can see, there's still some more things to check out. To be specific, I need to verify the dates and places of birth and christening for the first five children listed here. The birthplaces given here are clearly incorrectly recorded. I'll take a look at those later.

If you want to learn some more about pedigree analysis, take a look at chapter 2 of Val Greenwood's book, The Researcher's Guide to American Genealogy, published by Genealogical Publishing Company of Baltimore, Maryland. Copies are available in most libraries.