"Let's Have Accurassy!"

That expression was on a sign my mother displayed on her desk when she was a medical secretary, a field in which accuracy is vitally important.

Accuracy is also important in genealogy, so that we connect the correct people to our family trees.

I just had an encounter on Ancestry, where two different cousins attached an Ohio teaching certificate dated 23 February 1852 . . .

. . . to a person born 24 April 1879.(1)

There is another indication of this document's inappropriateness for the ancestor in question, Mary Anna Fry, wife of Herbert Roy Packard, a grand-uncle of mine.(2)  The Ohio teaching certificate was issued to Mary E. Fry.  Was that a mistake, or was the certificate in fact issued to a different Mary Fry?  Mary Anna Fry was born in Maine.  She married Herbert Roy Packard in Ontario, San Bernardino County, California, 19 August 1902.  She died in California.(3)  Was she ever in Ohio?  Of course, all that is moot in the face of the glaring date discrepancy.

The idea is to examine a document rather than just glancing at the name and saying, "Oh, this must be grand-aunt Mary's, so I'll just hook it up to the tree."  And thus begins a false trail.

In that same block of hints is a newspaper article on the new officers of a civic organization in Pasadena, California in 1932.(4)  The name "Annie Packard" appears in the article, and Ancestry has suggested the article as possibly related to Mary Anna Fry.  Again, questions arise:  Did Mary Anna Fry ever go by the nickname "Annie?"  Was she a member of the subject civic organization?  Was there another woman named Ann, Anne, Anna, or some other name in Pasadena who used the nickname "Annie?"  The date of 1932 is not a problem.  Mary Anna Fry died in 1947 in Pasadena -- four days after I was born, in fact.(5)  I have "Ignored" this hint for now, giving as the reason the fact that it requires further corroboration.  Not sticking that one on my tree unless I know that it does refer to the correct individual.  I may never know that.

Let us indeed have accuracy.

(1) Unfortunately, I was unable to find the source for this Ohio teaching certificate.  Sources do not appear when the object is posted by another Ancestry member, probably out of privacy concerns.  That may also depend on the level of security the owner has given their tree; i.e., whether it is public or private.  The document appears authentic, but then it is not possible to judge with certainty its authenticity without the source.  In any case, it does not belong attached to Mary Anna Fry (1879-1947).

 (2)  "California Marriages, 1850-1945", , FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:4188-4WMM : 24 March 2020), Mary Anna Fry in entry for Herbert R. Packard, 1902.

 (3)  Ancestry.com. U.S., Find a Grave® Index, 1600s-Current [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012. 

 (4)  https://tinyurl.com/bdd98sm4 (goes to article on newspapers.com; scroll down to the bottom, article headline mentions a Mrs. Jeffs being elected president of the organization.)

(5)  "California, County Birth and Death Records, 1800-1994", , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:CSWV-6VPZ : Sat Mar 09 04:49:33 UTC 2024), Entry for Mary Anna Packard and Holland Fry, 16 Apr 1947.