And what about the Heralds Visitations then. I saw two of these, one for each brother, they were different! Burkes Peerage is another self reported opportunity for "error".

OC

I don't think the heralds did any research themselves, they asked the family questions. Some people misremembered, and others left out what was unimportant to them.
I've got a family where the maternal grandmother was clearly known as Granny Brown because her first husband had died many years ago and she had remarried quite quickly to William Brown. So her daughter, who had died very young, must have been a Brown. Had she never remarried, they would have known she was actually Granny Smith. It took a researcher several hundred years later, who understood heraldry, to examine the tomb of the daughter and spot the error.

No, I didn't mean the heralds were guilty of poor research, I meant that people accept(ed) the Visitations as gospel, not understanding that they were self reported.

OC

And Joseph Bodycote died in Nottingham in 1858. Almost every online tree says this. A small investment shows that the Joseph who died in Nottingham was three years old and in fact the grandson of the other Joseph, who had died in Philadelphia in 1857!

Then of course Joseph senior had three sons: Charles, Robert and Henry ... or not as the case may be.