Debunking Photo Myths / Mistakes on Ancestry.com

As a variation on a prior post, I'm going to include each of these type of corrections when I come across them.  By way of background, I'm on one of my one-month Ancestry.com membership spurts. So, I'm filling in gaps and gathering a lot of info that I'll sort out later.  I know its not an ideal scenario and not very scholarly, but its what I've got right now.

But when I do these things, I'm "relying" on a lot of crap and unsubstantiated work. Its less of a risk for my Quebecois relatives because between Drouin and Tanguay, there is massive coverage and most of the now-province of Quebec is catalogued for the 15th through 18th centuries. Nevertheless, I see the same types of errors repeated over and over:  massive numbers of duplicate children; children assigned to the wrong parents (usually attributed to a first wife after she died); and so on.  One of the more easy to spot is the inclusion of a photograph or painting that purports to be a very old person.  In fact, I've not only copied a ton of these to my tree (see this prior post, which is a fraud, more or less, which I'm guilty of perpetrating / perpetuating), but I'm being more careful to spot them and I'm going to do my best to religiously post the errors on this blog.

First up, that error/fraud that I helped perpetuate.  The people in question (in my tree) are Jean Baptiste Brodeur (b 1690, d. 1768).  Here is the photo that is flying around ancestry.com that purports to be him:

Suffice it to say that this isn't Jean Baptiste Brodeur. Its John Bligh, the 4th Earl of Darnley.  How do I know?  The Google.  Their image search is awesome for this task.  Drag and drop the photo from Ancestry.com and voila.

 Among the links that are produced this this one.  So, out of the tree he goes.  And, apologies for the earlier post that claimed it was him, thereby reinforcing the false internet information and contributing to a Google search result that returns this blog as a result for this falsity.  Apologies.

Incidentally, the person who submitted this photo on Ancestry. has three identical Jean Baptiste Brodeur's in their tree, no doubt due to intermarriage. But they've not bothered to merge them as is quite easy to do.  Also a "hint" photo that is supposed to be his family is this photo:

The person on ancestry.com captions it: 

• Daughters of Jean Baptiste & Marie Brouillard

• about mid 1700's , St. Francis Du Lac, Richelieu, Quebec

Guess what?  Not even close.  The Google includes results that say it is "Fred and George Niedoba" and also "Emma, Nancy, Annie House."  You decide, eh?  A web site called GG Art (here) has a page called "enjoy old photos" and captions this one "Eva Jane Pifer . .  etc."

Finally, Jean Baptiste Broduer's wife Marie Madelein Brouillard (b. 1700, d. 1736) was supposed to be this woman:

Also not true.  I perpetuated this falisty here.  There are a bunch more that I'll be pointing out over the course of "filling in" my tree.  Some I've added and will remove.  Others, I'll point out when I encounter them.