Accuracy of ancestry.com, and some help

[Smith_USA]

I've lurked here on and off for a few years and taken some tips from this forum about researching my family history. Well recently I decided to register on ancestry.com. I spent a couple days, got quite far on my Father's side, and cross-referenced with a tree that my cousin had built on the site. Ultimately I found it pretty useful. That was a few months ago, and today I decided to stumble back upon it and do some searching on my Mother's side.

After an hour or two I traced part of my lineage back to a Duke of Normandy, just before the invasion in 1066, through one of his mistresses and an illegitimate child. Cool, I thought.

So then I went off on another branch, who emigrated from Scotland to England, shortly before coming to the US. The name Morgan (my maternal grandmother's maiden name) led to Gifford, which led to Gore, which led me to a woman named Rhoda Gardner; she was born in 1605 in Waltham Abbey, Essex, and died in Massachusetts (1693). The Ancestry.com source tells me that her mother was Marjory Dunbar, daughter of James Dunbar, who was the son of Alexander Dunbar and Janet Sutherland. I decided to pursue the Sutherland link, so eventually it leads me to a Margaret Moray. This is when I begin to get suspicious.

Like every other American, I have seen the movie Braveheart, and I recognized the name. So I dig deeper into that link and see an Andrew Moray, married to Christina Bruce. After doing a 10 second search on Google I discovered that this Christina is supposedly the sister of Robert the Bruce (Robert I). So on, and so forth.

With one eybrow raised, I delve deeper into the other part of the Sutherland tree. It leads me to the name Bailie. There is a series of William Baillies until it leads me to the marriage of one of them and a lady named Elizabeth Wallace. My other eyebrow raises. According to this source, she just happens to be the daughter of the one and only William Wallace. I do another google + wiki search to determine whether or not my belief was true, that he never married, nor had any children.

I believe now that I have fallen victim to a fabricated tree that only seeks to find some desperate connection to certain people in Scotland because of the movie. However, I am still curious as to where reality stops and the fabrication begins. Are there any experts here on the names I have mentioned in my post, or perhaps anyone who knows of good resources with which to pursue this further?

If I have come to the wrong conclusion about some of this though, please, don't hesitate to inform me.

[MapleMac]

Its well established that there are amongst those 'looking for bones' some who have other agendas. Why and what to do about them is too big a topic. However, it goes to reinforce good advice: check, recheck and check again - never rely on one 'authority' and do not rely just on Ancestry - humans supply what Ancestry offers and humans err.

I personally do not see Genealogy as an exact science but as a pathway strewn with obstacles just waiting to trip one up. This is due in part to our 'esteemed' ancestors who we spend so much time exploring. Who's nuts?

James.