Harriet E. (Smith) Peters

Ancestry.com has certainly revolutionized genealogical research since the days when I started and to see a census you had to send off to the National Archives for microfilm, and when it arrived in the mail you went to the library to read it. You now have access to millions of records for a few hundred dollars per year, and can post your research online where others can pay to steal it. Not a bad business model, but all that stealing or copying, as the perpetrators would call it, makes a mockery of serious research.

I’m going to take as an example a couple who lived in Hornby for a short time in the 1850s before moving west. Harriet E. (Smith) Peters appeared in the 1855 Hornby census. I have been corresponding with Harriet’s 2^nd great-granddaughter who has a family Bible with the inscription: "Barnabas C. Peters was married to Miss Harriet E. Smith at Hornby Forks, NY by G.A. Hendrick May 9th, 1850.” They lived in 1850 Orange which was then in Steuben County. We know a great deal about Harriet and her family after 1850 through mainly censuses but we also have her obituary when she died in 1907 Idaho. 

What we don’t know is who her parents were. That hasn’t stopped at least eleven (a lot of these were duplicate) postings listing John and Clarissa (Finch) Smith as her parents without any proof whatsoever and furthermore ignoring evidence that indicates John and Clarissa were NOT her parents. Probably only one of those listed John and Clarissa as Harriet’s parents, the others stole, er.. copied the original tree to theirs without even doing any research.

I decided to contact five of the “John and Clarissa were the parents of Henrietta” submitters and ask them how they came to that conclusion in the face of contradictory evidence. I asked:

What proof have you that Harriet E. Smith, husband of Barnabas C. Peters, was the daughter of John and Clarissa (Finch) Smith? I have found nothing to suggest this is true but several facts which refute it. For example, in the 1840 census, there is only one female listed in John’s household who was Harriet’s’s age however you list three daughters born during that time frame. From 1880 on, Henrietta always listed the birthplace of her mother as Vermont but Clarissa consistently listed hers as New York.

Two folks just ignored me. I received the following three replies:

1.    Obviously, I have a lot of misinformation thank you for contacting me to let me know. I'll check it out sometimes I get behind in making corrections please forgive me if this has caused you any problems.

2.    I am not an expert at all in this stuff. I have been trying to go through my stuff and straightend [sic] it out. I will go over her and see what is going on and fix it as I can. I am busy with other aspects of my life and am not on very often.

3.    Best way to resolve without question is for me to delete her profile.
Ref: Harriet Eliza Smith (1833 - 1909), wife of my 7th cousin, 7x removed.
When I'm matching records using Ancestry Documents, and other peoples tree, to populate a branch of a tree, it goes reasonably quickly. But then it takes a long time to go back through and engage brain, and apply reason to identify bogus information and amend the tree to reflect.
This portion of my tree is far removed from any main branch, thus I'll just delete the profile for her and her husband, which will prune all children, siblings, and ancestors from the tree. (Done today)
Thank you for apprising me of the error.

That pretty much confirms my suspicions. People steal the faulty, undocumented research of others and post it as their own, thus perpetuating errors ad infinitum. When called out on their plagiarism, they declare they just don’t have the time to research their family history correctly, think its just fine to copy and post the garbage research of others and intend (maybe) to correct it sometime. Number three decided to spite me by deleting that branch of his “tree”. I wish he’d deleted the whole thing. His was so bad he had John Smith listed with three concurrent wives and large families.

If anyone does have proof or at least a preponderance of evidence which suggests who Harriet’s parents were I would really like to hear from you.

Andrew and Bertha (Taylor) Williams

Some folks lived in Hornby only a short time but still have a story to tell, sometimes a tragic one. Such is the case for Andrew Beach and Bertha Eugenie (Taylor) Williams. They appeared in the 1905 Hornby census with their two-year-old son Harold. Born in Pennsylvania, they were married in 1898, lived in Ashland, Chemung County in 1900 and Elmira in 1910.

An article in the 22 October 1907 Elmira Star-Gazette reported that in June 1907 they were living in Hornby where Andrew worked at a sawmill. He was involved in an accident that severed his foot. Bertha was pregnant and while he was being treated at Corning Hospital, she gave birth there to twin girls, Ethel M. and Edith Rose. 

The girls were taken home to Hornby but Ethel died 29 September, age three months and her sister Edith died three weeks later on 21 October. Bertha went on to bear two more sons, Clifford and Carlton, before Andrew died of Bright’s disease in 1914. She remarried Ernest Wood and lived until 1950. 

Descendants still live in the area. One noteworthy granddaughter of Andrew and Bertha, Elizabeth “Bette” Williams, was very interested in genealogy and I wish I could have corresponded with her before she died in 2013, age 69. She was a Barbizon model, then a nurse and finally a special education teacher.