On 8 February 2025 at 21:12 JimmieS Said:

… Am I being too cynical in wondering how much of this misrepresentation has been generated by a few ‘professional genealogists’?

Jim

Probably!  Although slapdash professionals are always a risk, most of the damage is done by enthusiastic amateurs.  Most family trees  come from them, no training, and inclined to jump to conclusions, especially at first.   Even experienced researchers can be misled, so everything has to be checked.   Don’t trust other people’s work!

My family have lots of relatively unusual surnames, no John Smiths, which helps enormously.  Even so I was caught out by an unusual to modern eyes female name which turned out to have been common as muck for about 5 years during the 19th Century.

I’ve also got a branch of the tree named “Foley-Davey”, which I thought would be easy to unpick.  Unfortunately this group of my ancestors chopped and changed surname during their lifetimes.  Apparently randomly, no idea why!  Multiple combinations or Folly, Foley, Foly, Folley, Davey and  Davy, single or hyphenated, mostly “Foley-Davey”, but also “Davey-Foley”.    Two sisters shared a home for their entire lives, one either Foley or Foly, the other was always “Foley-Davey”.   Turns Foley-Davey isn’t an unusual surname, and most of them aren’t relations at all…

Dave