Its own errors, gathered
What This Archive Got Wrong
13 mistakes this archive made and then corrected in public, with what caused each one. An archive that asks to be trusted about other people's errors has to be legible about its own.
Every page here carries a confidence label, and the method only means anything if it is applied to the archive itself. These are errors this site published — not inherited from the family tree, but made here — together with what caused each one and what it should teach the next person.
None of these was quietly edited away. Each correction still stands on the page
where the error was made, which is why the links below go to the page rather than to an
apology. Two were caught within hours. One stood for a day — and it was the worst kind, a
confident correction aimed at the family about their own family.
13 September 2026
The Samuel is there, baptised 4 June 1781 — son of William Sneyd, weaver, and Mary Blackbourne, whose thirteen children fill the register between 1769 and 1794. The year 1769 belongs to his eldest brother William, christened three months after the wedding.
| It said | Reported twice in one day that no Samuel Sneyd baptism existed at Madeley for the tree's 1769. |
| It is | The Samuel is there, baptised 4 June 1781 — son of William Sneyd, weaver, and Mary Blackbourne, whose thirteen children fill the register between 1769 and 1794. The year 1769 belongs to his eldest brother William, christened three months after the wedding. |
| How | I searched for the tree's DATE instead of the tree's PERSON. The 1781 Samuel appeared in every result list I pulled and I discarded him each time for being twelve years out — while the family he belongs to, with the right father, the right mother and the right trade, was sitting underneath him. |
The lesson. A tree's dates are the softest thing in it. When the person fits and only the year is wrong, suspect the year. Where it was corrected →
13 September 2026
Two of the four links are documented: William Sneyd, weaver, married Mary Blackbourne at Madeley on 27 March 1769; and Samuel Charles Sneyd was baptised at Hanley on 28 April 1811, his father Samuel and mother Elizabeth, exactly as the tree says.
| It said | Said the English origin of this family's Sneyds was “not currently evidenced by anything”, after failing to find two baptisms at Madeley. |
| It is | Two of the four links are documented: William Sneyd, weaver, married Mary Blackbourne at Madeley on 27 March 1769; and Samuel Charles Sneyd was baptised at Hanley on 28 April 1811, his father Samuel and mother Elizabeth, exactly as the tree says. |
| How | I searched for baptisms, did not find them, and announced the conclusion — without following up a marriage that was sitting in the same results list, and without ever searching Hanley, the parish the tree plainly names as his birthplace. The negative was published within the hour; the positives took one more query each. |
The lesson. A negative is not finished until you have tried the places the claim actually points at. Two absent baptisms are not the same as an unevidenced line, and saying so in public before checking is how an archive overcorrects. Where it was corrected →
13 September 2026
She married William Hartley Sneyd at Brisbane on 15 November 1859, aged nineteen — Queensland marriage registration 1859/B/255.
| It said | Said Miriam Wakefield “married at twenty-one”. |
| It is | She married William Hartley Sneyd at Brisbane on 15 November 1859, aged nineteen — Queensland marriage registration 1859/B/255. |
| How | The age was arithmetic from a birth year and an assumed marriage year, and neither the date nor the registration had ever been looked up. The Queensland marriage index is free and this archive has been using it for other people all week. |
The lesson. An age you calculated is not a fact you found. If the register that would settle it is one you already have open, look. Where it was corrected →
13 September 2026
They could be tested, three miles away. Dursley St James is transcribed 1577–1951 and Cam St George 1568–1939 — both cover the whole chain, and between them they hold 340 of the 494 Saniger records in the county.
| It said | Reported that five of the six Saniger generations could not be tested, because Berkeley St Mary's transcript stops in 1677. |
| It is | They could be tested, three miles away. Dursley St James is transcribed 1577–1951 and Cam St George 1568–1939 — both cover the whole chain, and between them they hold 340 of the 494 Saniger records in the county. |
| How | The coverage of one parish was checked carefully and then treated as the answer to the whole question. The page even said the surname's real centre was Dursley and Cam, and still did not go and look there. |
The lesson. Checking coverage is only half the discipline. Having found that one source cannot answer the question, ask which source can — a negative about a parish is not a negative about a family. Where it was corrected →
10 September 2026
The tree predicts 26.6% Scottish. It was never in disagreement with the DNA.
| It said | Computed the family tree's predicted Scottish ancestry as 0.02% and announced that a descendant's DNA estimate — 41.9% Scottish and Welsh — was contradicting the tree. |
| It is | The tree predicts 26.6% Scottish. It was never in disagreement with the DNA. |
| How | The method attributed each line of descent to the deepest ancestor on record, rather than the deepest ancestor with a known birthplace. Her great-grandfather was born at St Quivox in Ayrshire; the men above him are in the tree as names with no places at all, so the walk stepped straight past Ayrshire and called that eighth of the pedigree unknown. |
The lesson. When a computed result contradicts something the record plainly says, suspect the computation first. A number produced by your own code is not evidence — it is a claim, and it needs checking like any other. Where it was corrected →
9 September 2026
He was born on 30 September 1837, and his widow was right.
| It said | Said William Hartley Sneyd was born in 1838, and that his widow's sworn evidence disproved Find a Grave's 30 September 1837. |
| It is | He was born on 30 September 1837, and his widow was right. |
| How | He died on 11 September; his birthday was the 30th, nineteen days later. A man born on 30 September 1837 is 64 on 11 September 1902 — exactly what she swore. I did the arithmetic without checking the death date against the birthday. His Queensland death registration then gave the date outright. |
The lesson. A stated age is a birth year minus one for everybody whose birthday has not yet come round — which is most of the year, for most people. Where it was corrected →
9 September 2026
26 and 29 July 1916.
| It said | Read a handwritten Statement of Service as “marched out to Étaples 26.4.16, taken on strength 29.4.16” and published April dates for Arthur Sneyd's arrival in France. |
| It is | 26 and 29 July 1916. |
| How | The typed Casualty Form B.103 records the same events in ruled columns and reads unmistakably as July — and July is the only reading consistent with his reverting to the ranks on 29 July. |
The lesson. Read the typed form before the clerk's freehand, when both record the same events. Where it was corrected →
9 September 2026
No such record could be found under any spelling of his name.
| It said | Stated that a fourteen-page service dossier for Lindesay Atkinson D'Arcy “is known to exist”. |
| It is | No such record could be found under any spelling of his name. |
| How | Nothing was ever checked. The claim had been carried forward on assumption. The search method was then verified by running the same query for his brother-in-law, which returned his dossier at once — so the absence is real. |
The lesson. “Is known to exist” is a claim like any other and needs a source. Where it was corrected →
9 September 2026
WO 149 runs from 1790 and is held at Sandhurst. It cannot contain a cadet of the early 1770s.
| It said | Recommended the Woolwich cadet registers, WO 149, as the best hope for Robert D'Arcy's parentage. |
| It is | WO 149 runs from 1790 and is held at Sandhurst. It cannot contain a cadet of the early 1770s. |
| How | The series was recommended without checking its date range. |
The lesson. Check what a record set actually covers before sending anybody to it. Where it was corrected →
10 September 2026
Of those 144, eight rest on a record set. Fifty-six rest only on other people's family trees and seventy-nine on nothing at all. Above generation seven, exactly one of sixty ancestors rests on a record.
| It said | Called 144 ancestors and twelve generations back to 1654 “what this archive will defend” and “the honest figure”. |
| It is | Of those 144, eight rest on a record set. Fifty-six rest only on other people's family trees and seventy-nine on nothing at all. Above generation seven, exactly one of sixty ancestors rests on a record. |
| How | The archive applied its own rule — that a family tree is not a source — to the Hornby descent and to Keele Hall, and never once applied it to the branch it was holding up as solid ground. Nobody counted until somebody asked how far past Brisbane the thing actually went. |
The lesson. Audit the ground you are standing on before you audit anybody else's. The claim you have never tested is the claim you believe. Where it was corrected →
10 September 2026
The brief was right. Ian Kenneth D'Arcy married Giuseppina Falco, and their daughter is the person this archive is built outward from.
| It said | Told the family their own founding brief was wrong — that the D'Arcys had married Defranceski, and only the Defranceskis had married Falco. |
| It is | The brief was right. Ian Kenneth D'Arcy married Giuseppina Falco, and their daughter is the person this archive is built outward from. |
| How | I looked up the root person's spouse instead of her parents, saw a Defranceski, and published a correction to somebody else's accurate account of their own family. It stood on the site for a day. |
The lesson. The worst errors are the confident ones aimed at somebody else. Before correcting a person about their own family, check the thing they would have checked. Where it was corrected →
10 September 2026
Fount-room Overseer.
| It said | Published William Hartley Sneyd's title in the Government Printing Office as “Quoin-drawer Overseer”. |
| It is | Fount-room Overseer. |
| How | The 1884 volume scanned badly. The 1890 volume prints it plainly, and “fount-room” — where a printing house keeps and distributes its type — is what the job actually was. |
The lesson. One bad scan is not a reading. Find the same fact in a second year. Where it was corrected →
10 September 2026
39 men, with 6 women and 7 children.
| It said | Quoted the surgeon of the England as receiving “30 men of the 39th regiment”. |
| It is | 39 men, with 6 women and 7 children. |
| How | The figure came from a secondary account. The National Archives' transcription of the journal itself says 39 — and the regiment's own number is presumably how a 9 became a 0. |
The lesson. Go to the record. A number that matches something else in the sentence is a number to distrust. Where it was corrected →
And the errors that came with the tree
These are a different thing, and worth keeping separate: claims inherited from the exported family tree and overturned here. They are somebody else's mistakes, made in good faith, and every one of them is still shown on the page that corrects it rather than deleted.
| The tree said | The record says |
|---|---|
| The Sneyds descend from Ralph Sneyd of Keele Hall | Disproved from the Madeley register: the 1742 baptism names the father as William, and Ralph was eighteen. → |
| Robert D'Arcy was born in 1751 in North Yorkshire | The 1751 is arithmetic from an age on a burial register, and nothing places him in Yorkshire. → |
| Major George Pitt D'Arcy married twice at Chatham in 1810 | He married Miss Ludlam in 1805 and Maria White in County Wicklow about 1819. → |
| Arthur Hartley Sneyd was a clerk, buried in France | A typist, with no known grave. → |
| Vivian Ernest William Sneyd died between 1919 and 1921 | 16 February 1920, registration 1920/B/31382. → |
| Vivian Claude Sneyd was born at Rockhampton | Windsor, Brisbane, on his own attestation paper. → |
Why this page exists
Because the alternative is worse. An archive that corrects itself silently is asking to be trusted on exactly the point it has just proved it can be wrong about — and because the pattern in the eight above is more useful than any one of them. Five of the seven are the same failure: a number or a claim taken from a secondary source, or from a bad scan, and not checked against the record itself.
If you find a ninth, it belongs here. How claims are labelled → · What is still open →