How not to do it is to say My name is Cameron, 600 years ago there was a famous chief called Cameron so we must be related, then sifting through the records to put together a tree that connects you with the  person you would like to have as your ancestor.  If this involves the odd person living to 120 years and women bearing children when they are over 80, well that doesn't really matter, nobody is going to look all that hard and strange things happened in them olden days. After all, the past its a foreign country, they did things differently there. The fact that their tree is inaccurate, or just plain wrong doesn't really bother them. Accuracy is not a big deal for them, it is the name they have got back to that matters.

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In fact I suspect that the majority of Family trees are put together just by cutting and pasting someone else tree into ones own without even really looking at the details, it is easy to spot this where you see the same spelling mistake or typo in the same place in tree after tree.

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To be fair in this early years section that is pretty much what I have done too, as sadly there is little choice. However in my defence I have used "pooled data"not just cut and paste. what I have done is to pool the information from a number of family trees and bolstered that as far as possible with what factual information is available.

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In the very early years in 14th & 15th Centuries, I was just having fun to see how far I could get. These sections are almost entirely lifted from other member's trees.  Perhaps one day time will permit me to spend a few days in the National Records office and do some proper research myself to confirm or refute these early family trees.

 

Where there are unreasonable assumptions, I have discarded the information. and where there are two equally plausible lines to follow, I have tried to follow both. Most of all, I have tried to be very selective. Where a connection is suggested to a famous family I look for other connections.  Even in the past our Cameron Family were not wealthy landowners, they were lowly tenant farmers living hard, short lives, so where someones family tree claims that Cameron of Lochiel's son married my ancestor's daughter...... well I bet that he didn't !!

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Whilst the Lord-Seekers may seem foolish and easy to mock, there is an important point here. It is so very easy to find oneself going in the wrong direction. There have been plenty of situations where I have been sure that Wee Hamish is the Son of Big Hamish and grandson of Evenbigger Hamish, but I just cant find that crucial Baptism record that would clinch it. When on a Data-Hunt like this it is all too easy to find oneself sifting through Evenbigger's records looking for something that mentions his grandson.

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OK so sometimes one can get away with this, but it does require the greatest caution, it is so easy to see what you want to see when going through endless pages of search results.