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Ancestor Charts are convenient ways to display the generations in a person's ancestry.

Those Ancestor Charts, however, do have a major weakness that is often overlooked. The problem is that they display only birth, marriage and death information but do not contain any discussion of how determinations are sometime made as to whether there is a parent-child relationship in a given instance.

As an example, in one Prentice line, Ancestor Charts posted on the internet unequivocally identify Valentine Prentice, b. c. 1561, as the son of John Prentice. However, such a relation is not documented by any original church or civil record. Rather, the father-son relationship between John and Valentine is inferred from the following facts:

1. Valentine, the son, gave his first 2 childrenthe first names of John and his wife.
2. The name, Valentine, was relatively rare and a relative of John bears that same name.
3. Valentine received his name the year after the other Valentine died, perhaps inferring it was to honor him.
4. No other known in the family tree had a known son named Valentine.

Recognizing the somewhat tentative nature of any father-son relationship between John and Valentine, our PRENTICE book identifies the foregoing circumstances and expressly invites readers to conduct further research on the question whether there is such a father-son relationship.

Unfortunately, that nuance is lost on Ancestor Charts posted on the internet, and elsewhere, and viewers are being lead to believe, incorrectly, that the father-son relationship has been solidly established.

Although not a perfect solution, perhaps the best way to remedy the chart weakness, discussed above, is to note, on the chart itself, that the evidence is unclear. That can easily be done by changing a name entry:

• From: [name of son].
• To: (possible son) [name of son]

As an example, the Ancestor Chart entry would not read "Valentine Prentice", but would instead read: "(possible son) Valentine Prentice".

Correcting such misinformation is sometimes like trying to unring a bell. Too often, the preparer of a chart has unknowingly relied on another chart which is misleading, and has no way of knowing that the information he or she is dissiminating is, itself, misleading. In that type of situation, the person knowing the true situation should contact the preparer of any misleading chart and provide such person with correcting information.

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