Beware!
But I kept encountering researchers who were warning me off and even seemed paranoid about this woman. I thought that was a bit strange, and I wondered about them. Were they jealous or had something against her? I was beginning to feel she was being bullied by people.
As I compared information about our common line, I noticed that what I had researched didn't match her family stories and her documents. That didn't bother me too much, since genealogy is not an exact science. However, in most cases people acknowledge if they have taken liberties or explain their conclusions. She didn't, but I excused her since many mistakes are out there, and genealogy is generally just a hobby.
When I found she had published several books about our shared family line, I dug deeper into her "research". After a while, I began to wonder why she never reported the sources of her "documents" and why the handwriting on the documents she shared seemed so modern? Although she claimed she was reporting researched family history, her books seemed to be "historical fiction".
I later learned that she has threatened law suits against people who challenge her work, that she has changed other people's work online and publicly called out people who disagree with her. Needless to say I was a bit shocked to find out she apparently was as mean-spirited as people claimed. Wow!
The following is a portion of a letter written in defense of one of the person's victims. This letter was written by a researcher who had been attacked by the person mentioned above and described her experiences.
"(The author) contacted me the first time probably in 2011 after reading a message that I had written on Rootsweb or one of the other message boards. At this time, I think she was writing her first book. She asked me to send her a copy of my documentation, she wanted to include it in her book. I shared some information, but did not send all my documentation. Two years later, (I was asked) to join the (family research) Group on Facebook. I joined for a short time, but I found (her) to be overbearing and quickly dropped out of the group. She started harassing me through emails, threatening to sue me for defamation of (her ancestor's) character. I had to block her three times on my email account, because she kept changing her username to reach me. She was also harassing me on Find-A-Grave and Ancestry. Find-A-Grave removed her from their site. I do not know for certain that Ancestry contacted her, but after numerous complaints by me about her, the harassment stopped or so I thought. In Oct 2016, she contacted almost all of the teachers at my school hoping that someone would email her a negative comment. I had to ask school officials to block her from our school email site. After the book was written I thought she was through, but this week she deleted information on WeRelate.org and also recently set up a duplicate account on Find- A Grave. (She) likes to cut and paste. She takes comments and changes the context to make it look like people are agreeing with her. (She) has placed documentation on Ancestry that a descendant submitted DNA and proved (his ancestry) but the ancestor never married and does not have any descendants. Before she wrote her book, she was told numerous times by several people that her documentation was wrong, but she wrote the book anyway. Then all the records were placed on Ancestry and people began posting them to their trees."
All of this reminded me of a woman who sold fraudulent genealogies in my Dotson line to help people join the Daughters of the American Revolution. She is the reason that a Sarah Hollyday is still showing up erroneously as a wife of my Richard Dotson, and may always show up as a wife. It was only when a book was being written about Richard Dotson that the truth came out. The wife of the author was the county librarian and secured the book which supposedly "documented" the "marriage" of Sarah to Richard. The book existed, and the pages referenced existed, but the information showed she married another person and was never married to Richard Dotson. Unfortunately, some want to make money from family history and will create history if it's not available.
Beware of the bearer of genealogical gifts that seem too good to be true, and beware of challenging the bearer of the "gifts" if money is the motive.
