,..is attracting a raft of naive folk, love ’em, but…

Columbus sailed the ocean blue
In fourteen hundred ninety-two.

Therefore the presence of a European in a place called Illinois in 1300 is quite remarkable. And the likelihood that he is a citizen of the United States is vanishingly low. The fact that his name is Sir Knight Walter Giffard is bizarre. And why do they insert ‘knight,’ as if ‘sir’ was not enough in a space-limited blank…..

Some even enter USA 10 and more times into the record, as if this helps.

Then there’s the school of thought that fills in ‘Mrs Bloody Sven’ in the spousal blank, though his actual wife may not be known. This means the rest of us have to erase it. And every spouse where the real answer is FNU LNU (first name unknown last name unknown) or just —heaven save us—leave it blank. In case someone has the real answer. I am, however, left with the image of a white-haired, apron-wearing Nordic lady with a spoon…Mrs. Bloody Sven.

Then there is the latest minimalist trend. “Let’s just toss ALL the things we don’t understand.” This leaves us with plain old Maude Pitres. The fact that she is a titled lady whose real name (to distinguish her from all the other de Pitreses) was Maud Fitz Walter de Pitres, which is short for Matilda daughter of the Walter who administered or was born inor whose near ancestor administered or was born in the town of Pitres. Which happens to be in France. Maude Pitres. Facepalm. Facepalm. Facepalm.

Found an interesting little tidbit today, a little ditty to the effect that the Crocker family, the Crewe family and the Coppelstone family (3 Devon families) were standing on their property to meet William the Conqueror. A couple of the Devon lines go back to personal names like Wiganus, etc, which I’m moved to ask—could these be Saxon landholders, still in place a couple of hundred years later. In-trust-in’, as Jane is wont to say.

Meanwhile I struggle through not just Maude Pitres, but a shocking lot of other alterations.

New customers for the service. More names entered. More records put in. All to the good. But oh, my, you just have this image of a couple of people who’ve never motored beyond their county line trying to figure out the way to fill in those blanks, and who add USA because that’s where they are!