I have an autograph of Willie Heston on ebay (and another in my personal collection). I was contacted by his grand daughter who told me it was fake because Willie REFUSED to sign anything "Willie" because she told me he HATED that name because he was teased about it since it can be another name for a Penis (true story). I respectfully told he in a nice way that I knew more about her Grand Fathers autographs than she did having collected early Football autographs and owning or handling at least 20 Hestons in the last 10 years and she was like 8-10 years old when he died. She refused to believe me and said she was going to contact authorities and all that. SO, I dug into my files and asked some friends for help and provided 5 different examples of handwritten letters completely in his hand in which he signed his name "Willie". Having completely proven her wrong, she just disappeared, never even bothered to apologize for questioning my ethics.
Moral of the story (and I have at least 5 -10 other similar stories over the years) FAMILY USUALLY DOES NOT KNOW WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT, especially when you are talking about children or grand-children. I would absolutely trust a spouse's word on something (my wife knows me better than I know myself) but be careful taking the word of "family" as gospel in the collecting world.
Rhys
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