Pakledinac-IRISH? What to do with Disproven Info!

I did not think Pakledinac sounded like an Irish name? Nor does Hinterhauser sound Irish. But to my surprise, in the 1930 Census, John Pakledinaz and his wife Anna (Hinterhauser) were born in Ireland and actually spoke Irish. Hmmm??

Obviously this is a mistake. Unless the enumerator was drinking a little too much when they passed by the Pakledinaz household that day, I am chalking this information up as false probably due to a communication gap – John and Anna were not native English speakers and probably had hard accents.

I know it is false because many other sources have John from Croatia (the now term) where his native tongue was Croatian and Anna from Austria-Hungary where her native tongue was German.

So, what to do with this information?

I could basically ignore it and just act like it isn’t there; that may be the easiest thing. But, what of future researchers who get my information? If I do not mention this and basically do nothing with the information then couldn’t that discredit anything else I have. It would be like I missed it – then that would bring the question of what else have I missed.

Document and move on!

The correct thing to do, as far as I am concerned, is to document the information within your database and list your analysis as to why this is false. I use Legacy Family Tree so I use the advice I got from Geoff Rasmussen on the Legacy Family Tree website. I will add events for both John and Anna for Nationality and Language Spoken but I will edit those events and put Disproven Nationality and Disproven Language Spoken (see screenshot below).  I will then add my analysis or

reasons for why this information is false.This also goes on to show how to record conflicting and alternate information.

Whichever database or software you are using to record your family research may have a different way of recording disproven information but the important thing is that the information is recorded in your research.

How do you record disproven or alternate information?

Thanks for reading and keep diggin’ for that family.

Chris