Being Critical

My vow to not criticize others is sometimes hard for me to keep, and I most often break my vow when people do things that I consider to be strange. Yesterday afternoon I broke my vow when I stumbled upon something inexplicable. It was then that I found myself asking a computer screen, “How stupid can you people be?”

“Why were you saying such a naughty thing to a computer screen?” you might wonder, or maybe not. I plan to tell you anyway.

A recommendation prompted me to explore a no-fee website that allows people to construct family trees. This fits my budget really well, so I went to work growing my tree. While adding branches, I used the “find” feature to locate ancestors. It was during one such search that I came across several entries made by people I consider to be clueless.

Entering the name “Francis Marion Taylor, Jr.” yielded multiple pages of entries. That meant there was a good possibility the specific gentleman I was trying to locate would be there someplace. My goal was to find the name of the lady he married, Sarah Anna Chapman, so her name and information could be entered automatically on my tree. Thanks to several geniuses, my attempt to locate Sarah proved to be much more difficult than it should have been. In the column for the name of the spouse, “Mrs. Taylor” was entered as the wife for multiple Francis Marion Taylor listings. I had to wonder if it all of these men were married to the same woman. Other similar entries were, “Mrs. F. M. Taylor”, “Mrs. F. Taylor”, “F. M. Taylor,” “Taylor,” and “Wife.”

… and this is why I talked to my computer screen.

Some of my tree people:

(L-R; Top to Bottom) Vera Lauretta (Morrell) Lacy, mother; Raymond R. Lacy, paternal grandfather; Tempa Adeline (Taylor) Lacy, paternal grandmother; Samuel Harvey and Mary Matilda (Palmer) Morrell, maternal grandparents; William Amos and Amanda (Lawson) Palmer, maternal great-grandparents; Yours truly and Hubby on our wedding day; Samuel Harvey Morell and Sarah (Harris) Morell, maternal great-grandparents; Delbert W. Lacy, father.

The picture collage was made by my bro. If he happens upon this post, I will expect corrections if the great-grandparents are labeled incorrectly. The others are correct.

  ~ Clipart: Mountain.com