Well, this will be a short, disappointing post. For those of you who are wondering what this is about, in early January, I posted details about my experiment to help others correct incorrect or missing information on the parents of John Whitmer (Johannes Whitmer) who was born in Barbelroth, Germany in 1752 and emigrated with his parents to Frederick County, Maryland when he was a little boy.

To recap, I emailed 357 tree owners on line with information about my earlier research and publication of findings on the origins of John Whitmer. At that time, there were three online trees that had his correct parents and one of those was mine, which I am eliminating from the count for this tally.

Of 357 emails, I have received 24 replies and all but one thanked me for the information and either said outright that they were updating their trees or that they were reading the article on my blog site and would be updating their information. One person insisted that his/her information was correct (Michael and Barbara Whitmer as John’s parents) and offered to share their information with me. I replied that I would love to have a copy of or source for any proof that Michael and Barbara were John’s parents. That was the last I heard from that person.

A look at the on line trees today shows that, not counting my tree, there are now nine – yes, 9 – correct trees so the number has more than quadrupled from the original two. That is a bit encouraging.

We will see how things look in early March for the final total, but, at this point, I am not hopeful. It’s a sad state of affairs when a fully sourced research article is shared with 355 people and only 9 of those trees are updated. At least, it is a start.