Can't see the forest for the trees

It is said that a person can't see the forest for the trees when they are focusing on the details instead of the 'big picture'. But sometimes, the devil is in the details.

Go for a walk through the woods and you will see that there are a variety of trees that make up the forest, with the exception being Pando, the 'one tree' forest. Where there is fertile ground there is opportunity for a variety of life giving trees. Trees don't just grow anywhere. They are specific to different environments. I have received the big picture which is the broad genetic makeup of who I am. On this search, I'm finding that this forest of who I am is not only made up of the few trees I knew as its foundation. There's a lot more to the story than I ever considered.

I have a list of strangers who have done this same voluntary DNA test--people who for the most part, I have been determined to have a blood connection to. We've never met, never heard of one another, but share pieces of each other. We try to trace the blood line through our family trees, but there's one problem. If any point on any one tree is not the correct information, we will be stuck focusing on the details of that one tree when it doesn't even grow in our forest. If I'm told my great-great grandaddy is Paul Rochester and I'm trying to trace a blood relation between myself and my newly discovered relatives through his family line, but it turns out that he's not in fact my great-great grandaddy then... guess what! I CAN'T SEE THE FOREST FOR THE TREES! 

If the information I have about my family is 100% accurate, the forest still depends on the information of my blood relatives families being 100% accurate. If there is just one lie, just one small mistake, just one detail that was overlooked, just one parent on that family tree that was not the actual parent,... the tree falls. And we are left with the question as we try to uncover these mysteries, "If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound?".