Does it bother you when the media gives incorrect details about the descendants of historical figures?

Any qualiified researcher will spot this kind of thing and it is an irritant. However, journalism doesnt try to find it all out (no matter what we think).

Consider, of course..the questions we see here everyday. People know next to nothing about GOOD GENEALOGY INFO..and many don't even want to.

Somedays, you just bite your tongue.

Andrew Jackson did not have any direct descendants. He didn't have any collateral descendants as both of his brothers died without issue.

However I agree with Ted. Mistakes on the part of Gl amour Magazine are not the same thing as the Smithsonian. I think a network called the History Channel should do better at clarifying that the children of George Washington were his step children.

Edit: I might add I saw a link posted here that Facebook apparently uses for people checking on their surname that identified Andrew Jackson as Stonewall. If you are a history buff you know Stonewall was Thomas Jonathan Jackson. Andrew Jackson was called Old Hickory. Stonewall has been regarded as a master military strategist in leading confederate soldiers in the Shenandoah Valley against Sheridan's troops until he was killed. Field Marshall Erwin Rommel (the Desert Fox) went to the Shenandoah Valley before WW2 to study Jackson's maneuvers. Andrew Jackson was the general at the Battle of New Orleans and later president.

From Smithsonian magazine, yes. From Glamour? Ha! They don't bother their cute little fluffy heads about things like accuracy. If you are beautiful you don't have to be smart. The National Inquirer and that other tabloid that features odd creatures ever week ("Australian bitten by 40-pound cockroach!!") are not serious periodicals either.

The History Channel has to put up a show every hour, 24/7. Some are better researched than others.

This is a 'magazine' article and a magazine that doesn't looks like a seriously researched piece of work...so a trashy, money making, celeb type of media......... so I wouldn't be taking anything it said as true, researched or particularly honest.......... although as you say many do believe everything they see, read etc

Are you being too picky...in this instance, with this piece, yes..if what you say is correct and "they did adopt one of the twins of Rachel's brother, Severn Donelson, whom they named Andrew Jackson, Jr." then adoption makes that child legally their child ( although I do agree that she is not biologically descended from that particular US president, as far as is known)

Moving away from what non researching and less than honest journalist write.......we see so many copy and paste lets pretend family trees online now and people who think they are descendants of every famous, Royal and Noble that ever existed...does that bother me...not really there are always people who like to think they are better than anyone else and use what they think their ancestors were to do that...I feel sorry for them that they think their ancestors 'make them' something they are not..........

Like several on here I am interested in my own ancestors and making sure that I only have my ancestors in my tree and helping those who also want to prove their own ancestry, if anything 'bothers me' it is the frustration of not finding enough records to prove this....

Taking this one step further, each and every website needs to sort out what is genealogy and what is not....... I know , you know but new researchers do not, they have no idea how to begin and think a commercial website is the correct way to do that, not learn how to research, what are real records, how to verify and cross reference and many end up with lets pretend trees as they think it is a competition to get back as far as possible and to 'relate' to every famous person they can or they are a 'nobody'..........that bothers me the human side of it ( it shouldn't as I can do nothing about it) but it does....................

I find it irritating that is happens, but the people on TV shows simply read the information they are given, The fact that the History Channel would get that incorrect is surprising and I would probably let them know. I find local news people not knowing the area or the way things are pronounced more troubling,

I totally agree. The current state of journalism is sadly lacking and fact checking and research seem to be a thing of the past. DH has a degree in Journalism. If you want to hear a shouting rant, mention inaccurate reporting in current media and stand back.