James Henry Pattee

Two days ago, I was contacted by a gentleman living near the Sheridan Masonic Cemetery in Sheridan, Oregon.  He seen my photo of my 2nd Great Grandfather James Henry Pattee, on findagrave.  And looked me up on ancestry.com.  He noticed that I had attached a story that someone else had added to ancestry regarding his military service during the Civil War.  I added it with the intention of going back and working on it more.  This was my mistake and one I should have known better.  The story stated he fought with the 22nd Ohio Infantry on the Union side.  When you look at his military records, which I have copies of and are also found on ancestry, they state he fought with the 26th Ohio Infantry Company D. 

This is a mistake made quite often.  One person says one thing and everyone else adds it without doing the work.  I am so sad to admit in this instance I am one of them.  I was so grateful to this man for pointing out my error.  I deleted the story from my ancestry tree.  But the damage had already been done.  This is one lesson I had learned early on in my research, with this particular line, no less.  When I first joined ancestry, I seen there were a lot of people that had already done a lot of work on the Pattee family.  And I thought, Yes!! And preceded to add all these trees to my tree.  After a little while of doing this, I started taking a closer look at the work and started to see some things that just didn't add up right.  So a hard lesson learned because I am still working on this line, trying to fix all that I did.  I am even at the point, in the last couple of days, where I want to just delete everything that is there and do what I have done with the rest of my lines, and verify as I go.  I am not sure what I was thinking when I attached that story, although I am thinking I might have done it quite a while ago when I was still learning.  That is an excuse of course and not a very good one. 

I didn't stop with just that one little story.  I have been working for the last two days on also looking at all my sources in regarding this family.  I will keep working on them for the next week.  I have always been a little embarrassed by this line and the "work" I had put into it from the beginning.  I will be working on cleaning it up and finding all my sources. 

That's the good thing about being human, I am not alone in my tendency of making mistakes. ;)  And I am always open to people pointing out my mistakes.  I would rather the work be right and me be wrong than the other way around. 

James Henry Pattee 1838-1907

James Henry Pattee

This gentleman from Oregon, is working on all the Civil War veterans in Yamhill County.  He also noticed that it is hard to see the inscription on the photo of James's headstone and has graciously agreed to try to get a closer photo.  He has been very kind and helpful.  Love this community of helpers.  Thank you to my new friend. :D