ROOTS & BRANCHES

Let me get this out of the way: I am not anti-Find A Grave.

True, I’ve had my differences with some of the more competitive aspects displayed by people who create memorials for the recently deceased with whom they have no relationship.

But it’s also true that this database of “final dispositions” accompanied by a massive number of photos of gravestones has a reach that individuals cannot match by themselves.

I’ve been able to experience online in my armchair seeing tombstones that would have required travel time and then the field work of actually finding the stone on a large cemetery. I’m thankful every time that happens.

But there are other times when I’m getting weary of really bad mistakes being made that then cascade into false generations.

Here’s just one example. The names—as those of us old enough to recall Jack Webb’s Sgt. Joe Friday’s immortal line on “Dragnet”—have been changed to protect the innocent.

So on a pedigree there’s a logical looking ancestor for Joseph Reist born in 1839—a man named Peter Willoughby Reist born in 1802. So far, so good, although it occurred to me that “Willoughby” wasn’t a name usually in use early in the 19^th century.

Assuming the Reists were (as they appeared to be) a Pennsylvania German family, it would have been odd for Peter to have any middle name—or if he had two given names, he likely would have been baptized Johann Peter or Hans Peter and gone by Peter in his everyday usage.

At first glance, the Find A Grave memorial for Peter Willoughby Reist echoed what was on the pedigree chart—born 1802, died 1883, aged 81 years and some months. When I eyeballed the tombstone, the “0” in 1802 looked more like a six and I couldn’t see an “8” in the age check, either.

Then I saw Joseph Reist’s family in the 1880 U.S. Census … and that it included a Peter Willoughby Reist, age 19.

Uh oh.

A little more research revealed a newspaper article from—you guessed it!—1883 in which the accidental death of Peter Willoughby was recorded.

That “0” I thought was a “6” and the age check discrepancy?

Yep.

Peter Willoughby Reist wasn’t Joseph Reist’s father.

He was his son.

Find A Grave is no worse than any other secondhand source. The irony in this case was that the primary data on which the source was based (the tombstone) was right there, staring me in the proverbial face and dying for correction.

Hopefully it will be corrected on Find A Grave … the memorial’s manager has been contacted.