Do Ancestry and FamilySearch REALLY Tell Your Family History?
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- čas přidán 23. 06. 2022
- There are 2 phrases that are red flags that something could be wrong with your genealogy. These phrases point to a common misconception about Ancestry and FamilySearch, and how those sites work.
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One of the things that drives me crazy about Family Search is that the first person who put in information is considered the "authority." No matter how much documentation you have, anyone can change it back to the wrong information because that is what was there first. Back when I was doing research at the LDS libraries in the 1980s, they accepted trees from anyone with no questions asked. They passed that information on to Ancestry when they were starting up their site. If you are working from an "old" tree, double check every document and do not accept Ancestry Family Trees data at all.
Never ever trust a FamilySearch tree. They are loaded with flaws.
@@starventure What's worse is when you tell them, ID their mistake BEYOND a shadow of a doubt and they still don't correct it. And then it ends up everywhere online.
Feel free to change the errors and if someone changes it back ask them if they have sources. They could be new to Genealogy.Agree with you and it's taken me a while to accept that the trees oftentimes are only hints. They are often chock full of errors and low on documentation. However, I've gotten lots of good info from the work of others too so its been a gold mine as well. The changing back and forth as James Tanner says more often happens in ancestor profiles the farther you go back in time..
I always make sure I have sources to back me up.
My cousins won't use our tree on Family Search because its so messed up and warned me not to use it either.
I am slowly correcting it and I cite my DNA tests were I can. They don't argue there.
@@BonnieDragonKat Makes sense. Apparently the church assigns missionaries to do genealogy? I don't know but he was a younger seeming guy and he said that was what he used, was a Christening doc...that was wrong but no one would listen to me.
I am correcting fellow researchers (gently) constantly, and every time I am working on a 4th or 5th generation, the hints give me other people who are working with those people, and I go to look at their trees. I find 1700s people with civil war records, marriage records from the 1900s, and so I start contacting researchers. It's a never-ending thing, but I am determined not to let this slide. I ask them nicely to "help me" as I am doing research and these hints are messing with the search engines and also people who don't know are copying them to their trees. So every time someone responds favorably and removes these records that are incorrect, it is a win win win!
So true! I've been working on all the branches of my family tree on FamilySearch and I regularly find incorrectly attached records that add the wrong parents, siblings, locations, etc. A major problem is the frequency of combined given names and surnames. There can be literally hundreds of people with the same first and last name married to a woman with the same first and married name as my relatives. Locations, dates, and maiden names are crucial. I recently had a Tim and Mary couple who lived on a farm in rural Pennsylvania confused with a Tim and Mary living in New York City at the same time. I painstakingly correct faulty trees and note reasons for those edits only to have some undone by another person. Inexperience is a factor. The more one works carefully to piece together records the better. One has to learn how to do things on FamilySearch. Often, the trees have to be viewed as a work in process on the site.
What you say is very true. I was looking for the marriage record of my great great grandparents. I found six couples with the same names who married each other around about the same time period. No it wasn't 1st April although it felt like it! Fortunately I knew where they lived so was able to locate the correct record.
I had a similar experience that I just fixed this past weekend. Late on a Saturday, I came across a relative that had an unusual first name of Ida that was born in the late 1800's. She died in 1912 of TB. There was another Ida that married a man with the same first name and very similar last name (within a year of the other Ida). It turns out that Gilmore was mistaken for Gilmer in the 1920 census auto-indexer and changed the last name to Gilmore, mysteriously resurrecting my dead family member 100 miles away. Well someone had just accepted hints at Family Search and assigned her 3 more kids. Of course the person that all of the records belonged to only had 1 source after I was done fixing everything. I documented it in my personal research records and put notes on their person as to who it should really belong to. Hopefully no one goes back and tries to reattach them.
Great video, Amy - I will recommend it to people who are new to family history and genealogy - you clearly delineate the differences without overwhelming the viewer with extraneous information or jargon...
Thank you for the kind words, Teresa. I appreciate that.
Amy, thank you. Well said. Having had to prove my family history for lineage societies such as the SAR, First Families of Ohio and many more have really provided me a great toolbox to understand how to research effectively. I love your term for hints - possibilities!
thanks -- great information -- I have seen lots of inconsistencies on both Ancestry & Family Search -- I look at what people have posted, but I know that I cannot really rely on the information unless I have thoroughly researched it myself in whatever records are available.
Very well stated Amy. Mistakes get copied from one site to another and then if you ask for a source for someone's information they suddenly clam up and won't respond!
I have been researching my family since 1974! Ancestry has made things easier but one must do the homework! Children of the deceased don't always get it correct. Children may not be aware of previous marriages. Records even being accurate can be deceiving! A couple of gents in my tree married women with the same name or name used so it appears the same woman is in the census having died years earlier. It is often best to check the relatives as well! The children listed too.
I've been saying the same thing as you for years. Case in point. I found my maternal grandafther on an Ancestry Family Tree and was intrigued to find out what relationship I had with the owner of the tree. Turns out there was none. After contacting her, she replied that my grandfather's name was the only one she could find on Ancestry that fitted, so she added my grandfather to her tree.
These genealogy web sites are useful as a starter reference, but they are not a substitute for proper research, although I understand that can be difficult if you ancestry originates in another country. I am lucky in that my paternal line has been in the area where I live in England for 500 years and many original documents pertaining to the family are held in the archives only 3 miles from where I live!
It's also worth remembering that if you can't find something on a site such as Ancestry, it doesn't mean it is not there, or elsewhere. When archives containing references to my paternal family were added to Ancestry, I found 25% of them had been mis-transcribed, with spellings of names that wouldn't exist in English, let alone any other language! Sites such as Ancestry are a good starting point, but it is a mistake to blindly accept what they offer you and it is certainly a grave error to just copy from someone else's tree to your own. I've seen plenty of instances of an error being propagated through family trees by copying. And if you come to a dead end, then there is not a lot that you can do after that. You can't just add records because they sound right.
I started a tree on family search several years and the next thing I knew, someone added a whole bunch of lines! I had barely put in me, my dad and my husband when someone else added a whole bunch to my husband’s family!!! It irritated me fist because one,I wasn’t aware that people could do that and second, that they are adding “unsourced information “!! I contacted them about this and basically was told that that’s how it works, it’s all one big family tree! I said no, I’m not adding my lines just so someone else can add their information to my tree without documentation! I don’t want to sound selfish here but I told her no, I’m taking my family off family search trees! I use family search for records but not to put my family on it. I occasionally subscribe to ancestry to check for any documentation they have also, which I am currently doing 6 months of world because they had a half of for the 4th of July.
Hi Amy! You're my favorite genealogy coach.
I had an epiphany last night.
History and stories matter SO MUCH!
Last night, I was listening to a video about the first Dutch in America. I already know I'm extremely Dutch. But I've never known what relatives I got it from.
So this documentary was talking about Dutch house furnishings.
They mentioned keepsake chest. I don't remember what they called it. My mom called hers a hope chest. It's for keeping the mementos that are too expensive to display out in the open. Or items that you're saving to make house with.
My mom started one for me when I was about 4.
I'm almost positive this tradition is from her mom's family.
Thank you so much for the kind words 😊 You’re so right about history and stories going together!
I am learning to slow down and pull up any records available to read them and then see if they do pertain to my family. Many times, when I am not certain, I ignore the hints. I am trying to be more careful as I have made all the mistakes you talked about. I have many things to clean up as I go back to them.
Any cooperative family tree can become a big mess. The biggest mistake I encountered? I myself got 5 extra siblings from a participant unknown to me. The pinnacle was the question of whether I was sure that it was wrong. ....
Yah dude, like I don't know how many people were sitting at the dinner table, when my parents got married, when my brothers and sisters were born....until my father passed away, after almost 60 years of marriage, my parents were always together.
Had a person attach another wife to my dad - I deleted it and got an e-mail saying she KNEW that was his wife. I wrote back. Show me a document. I was a kid during tht time and he was married to Jean - his second wife and I wanted the proof. Never heard from the person again.
Saying "according to Ancestry" is like saying "according to Wikipedia". It's a disclaimer. You are saying, "Don't quote me, I'm only saying what somebody else says".
I’m sure that’s the case sometimes. But I’ve seen more and more people using those phrases and, when you talk about it with them, you realize they honestly think that everything they search for on Ancestry or FamilySearch ties to their family. Especially FamilySearch- I’ve seen people in groups lately who were so excited about the FamilySearch tree taking them back umpteen generations, but then not realizing that FamilySearch doesn’t create the tree, they just host it.
Records can definitely be wrong. I had a brother, born several years before me, who died in early infancy, and my father did not find out until decades later that his death certificate had been filed with the wrong first name, as it happens my father's name. Apparently, someone was under the impression that the baby boy was a "Junior," but he wasn't. The family's next son (who is still living) was given this name, not the firstborn male who only lived a few days. This error also meant that when the state eventually started cross referencing birth and death certificates to make identity theft of deceased infants (once a common way of changing one's identity) more difficult, my deceased brother's certificates were never linked. I have reason to believe someone did in fact eventually set up an identity in his name. Think of the mess all of this could make for some genealogist down the road! They might find the erroneous death certificate and think that my currently living brother was the one who died as a baby and that his birth certificate must have the wrong year, or they might find later records of the identity thief and understandably assume he was a member of our family. I'm sure such things happened in the past, too, and the more time goes by, the harder it becomes to realize that the records are misleading.
Great example of why we can't look at just one record in isolation. One birth record by itself looks fine. One death certificate by itself looks fine. But when you put everything together, that's when you see that something doesn't fit.
FamilySearch royally messed up my great great grandfather Cortland Hyde’s mother as a Mary Blatchley instead of a Mary Wilber, which gave me a huge mess of incorrect cousins.
Someone on Ancestry had my parents in their tree, so I looked at it wondering if they were cousins of mine. They had my dad in the wrong family! I emailed them to inform them of that, because they are MY parents and I remember my grandparents. I never heard back and it wasn't corrected.
It’s so frustrating when that happens!
I also had this happen. My dad was with completely wrong parents although their first names were the same as my grandparents. I contacted the owner of the tree and explained the situation, but I never received a response. So frustrating to have the wrong information floating around.
This is so true....Thanks....You have to do lots of legwork and put in the time.
This is why I'm thrilled to have documentation done by other family members who in turn have spent the time to compile the information into binders. Then they've made copies for other family members to have.
Be very suspicious of Family Search. When I looked up my father's family there, I found listed a younger brother born several years after their mother died, and if my grandmother's date of birth had been checked it would have been obvious she would not have been of a child-bearing age when this birth was said to have occurred! A couple of other real siblings of my father were omitted, and names were incorrectly reported or misspelled for others.
I use FS to locate documents and that's it. I find it too difficult and complicated to use.
YES! This! Thank you!!
I've gotten into several online arguments about this and, sometimes it's been MY mistake. All for the best though, as I wouldn't have had access to the correct information if someone with better information hadn't caught my mistake and been persistent in correcting it.
I've been working on my family tree since 1974. The best response I got was from a 3rd cousin when I asked, I was calling to ask some questions about our mutual family relationships." The answer was, "That could be a lot of work. Why don't you just write to Washington? I heard they have it ALL in A book down there.
I try to get at least 3 documentations of people, mistakes can be made by the person recieving information,hearing,spelling etc. Confirm each persons documents with contacting or visiting,sometimes still incorrect, but I try to Always 'look outside the square' too. 'Most' of my work is pretty much confirmed,hopefully! Checking births, deaths,marriages registrations can have mistakes to but can be confirmed by doing the 3 documents check mostly. Doing my Family Tree for 25+ years now!😊
It depends on what the 3 documents are ;-) Joking aside, yes, it's always a good idea to look at as many different sources as possible.
Absolutely correct!. Over the past ten years I've been looking into various branches of my family tree. They all seem to be on Family Search in one form or other, but as anyone can add anything on that site I've found that some of the connections are ridiculous. One of the trees had my poor old great grandmother listed as a descendent of Robert the Bruce, What the person who posted that information didn't notice was that she had one of the family -a woman aged 80 years at her death, years giving birth to a child five years after her death!
I've adopted a policy of taking these sites with a grain of salt. If the information can't be verified then its probably untrue.
I’ve seen some real doozies on there and in various trees on Ancestry.
Yep. This. Ancestry & FamilySearch records & trees are sources of data - not always sources of fact. There is a difference.
The tree could be wrong [I *always* assume that a tree could be wrong - it's far safer]. Ancestry/FamilySearch could be wrong. The original record could be wrong.
It is you as a user who has to see whether you can convert that data into useful information that you can rely on - by checking it.
I often say "according to other trees" but I always follow it by saying "but I can't substantiate it" - because I wouldn't be saying it in any other circumstance: in any other circumsatnce I would be giving my own evidence.
Full disclosure: I make mistakes, same as everyone else...
Exactly. A source is just wherever you get information. It’s up to you to determine if that information is correct.
I always hesitate when I see links that don't follow migratory patterns. A family deeply rooted in New England didn't often jump down South.
The "potential parent" on Ancestry option isn't reliable. They take the info from other trees which may or may not be accurate.
If I choose Private tree, does keep the other people out that are adding people. Thanks
If you’re on Ancestry, nobody else can add to your tree unless you give them access (whether your tree is public or private). Setting your Ancestry tree to private does is keep people from seeing the details (or seeing it at all in the results, if you make it unsearchable).
I had asked ancestry if they have time stamps for the various family tree information. Unfortunately no. The information added to a given tree is pretty much a mystery where or who exactly where it came from if not documented which many many are (including my own for accepting those). Since we can't go back and find out who came up with this tree (after we've approved it) it is almost impossible to even know who came up with the information in the first place short of re-asking the person responsible for those trees and writing every person and getting a response.
Which is why I don’t attach from someone else’s tree to my own. I’ll look at it to see if there are any sources; if there are, I’ll check those out (and attach those sources, if appropriate). But if there aren’t any sources, I’ll just make a note that “XYZ tree says this,” but I don’t change my tree based on just that.
I was working on my uncle's side of the family, his mother's brothers wifes mother had a birthdate of 1799-1875, the husband was born in 1810 and died in 1869, The youngest child was born in 1875. There were no notes questioning this on the family trees I found this on. It was the universe telling me to slow down and question what I saw.
I'm glad you recognized that as a sign to slow down!
It isn't always the websites that are the issue either. Some of the genealogists who wrote books 100-200 years ago got it wrong. I have been fighting for 20 years to make people understand that the roughly 20 yo Scottish Daniel Davison in Ipswich MA is 1650 is NOT the same Daniel Davison that was born in 1650 in Charlestown MA to an Englishman because a Davisson genealogist said it was so.
Definitely. The internet didn’t invent bad research; it just helped it spread faster.
I'm glad I'm not the only one having this problem. There is a popular family tree of my ancestor online that is completely wrong. I figured out the lady responsible has my ancestor and someone with the same name but different county confused. I have documentation to prove she has the wrong guy but she either deleted my comments., changes it back after I've fixed it, or started a new profile with her info and had the one I got amended deleted. It's frustrating. She has never shown proof of her info and is basically peddling lies.
That's about the point when I give up trying to get the other person to make corrections. In those cases, I think the best we can do is publish what we believe to be correct. (Of course, that doesn't help much if you're sharing only on a collaborative tree like FamilySearch.)
When you put a NEW person into a tree Ancestry and Family Search can be handy, quite often the early 'HINTs'can be OK, they need checking of course however I find for existing people when a HINT appears more often that not they're not for you ! As Amy says You can muck your tree up very easily and it can be a nightmare when you've went down that rabbit hole to get things back to where they were. That's why I find it's better to use software rather than eg Ancestry itself, with software you can backup your data and so GO BACK when things go awry and they will ! Even when a HINT or a document etc looks good you'd be amazed how often 5 minutes of checking later you go WHEW thank goodness I checked !
Someone on family search gave
my great aunt a twin sister. Sure enough they had similar names and the same birth date, but they were born 150 miles apart. Quite the accomplishment for their mom - NOT!!!!!!!!!!!! 😂
I remember finding a similar entry in my tree. I had to merge them, since otherwise it would mean that her parents had had twin girls with the exact same name and dates.
I found a FamilySearch tree where the parents were married in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1665. All the siblings were married in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Yet my supposed ancestor was married in Rheinland, Pfalz, Germany. WHAT?? I can't imagine she--a young woman--would travel to a German state to get married--in 1702, no less--just to travel back to America. (It's a real bummer, too, because the grandparents of this supposed ancestor are buried in the town in England where I spent a year of college; I REALLY want this family in my tree!)
I've seen things like that -- and it's so frustrating! It's why I encourage everyone to look at how a fact fits with everything else. Does it even make sense for that event to have happened?
@@AmyJohnsonCrow I have seen that too. In fact I had someone on Family Search change my 3rd great grandfather's William Benson's birthplace from England to New York, I a copy of a bible record page saying he was born in England. Well, someone on Ancestry took it as gospel and he has him born in New York with parent's born in New York. We don't know who the parents are and besides, my Aunt, 2 uncles and myself have taken DNA tests and we have no common DNA matches with any of the supposed descendants of that couple. Drives me crazy when you have stuff well documented and people go and change it without looking at the documentation.
The Hints you get on Ancestry come from other people's family trees, they're records that other people have added to a person, usually with the same name, born around the same year, in a similar location (this can be as wide as the country, so it might not even be close). They may also have the same parents, or even one parent, and they may have attached to that person the exact records you've already attached and so they are suggesting these records too are from your ancestor. So the trees and hints are not separate entities, and are only as good as the person that has added them, and how thorough they were when adding them. I would say a lot of the time they're ok to accept, but check them yourself before adding and if they don't pass the threshold for being your ancestor don't accept them, leave them undecided.
Trees and Hints are two different things. Ancestry's hinting system looks through not only trees but also their record collections. You're right -- both trees and hints need to be evaluated before attaching them to your own tree.
@@AmyJohnsonCrow I agree they both need evaluating, but I've noticed, especially when evaluating my Irish ancestors that completely inappropriate suggestions worst in the hints nearly all the time for records other people have added to their trees whereas records with the exact birth date and locations don't, but when hitting the search button and selecting Ireland in the collection drop down box they are right there, so if you're right then Ancestry's hint algorithm that looks for matching records isn't very good at all.
Also many of the hints have records where the mother's maiden name is different and I already have confirmed down to the townland level (which I don't think Ancestry even knows about) that what I've attached is correct. We all make mistakes so it's always possible what I've attached is incorrect, but I think the algorithm takes more weight of what other people attach to their tree and it you've attached something incorrectly (which I know I did once for sure) over person I know copied it into their tree, 5 more people copied it into their trees, and even though it was a guess.
I was a bit more inexperienced and naïve back then, this comes back in the hints in a private experimental tree I use now, even though the marriage record is totally inappropriate for the person in question - after the birth of the two first children she had and she was too young (most likely), and in Dublin where no other records for this person and far away from where the other records are, so not impossible but very, very unlikely.
So I just don't trust the hints system anymore unless it is irrefutable that the record relates to the person - dates and exact locations, mother's maiden name etc. etc. I don't think Ancestry should be putting records, especially those that have no details to be able to corroborate them into the hints. You can search other people's trees yourself and judge for yourself what they've attached to their trees, maybe contact them if there isn't enough supporting information, but putting them in the hints makes it look as though they are correct when they aren't.
Amy, this leads to a point I just discovered. I found a death record in the State of Washington for one of my Great Uncle's wife. It the only correct information on it was her husband 3rd husband's name and her mother's maiden name and father's surname. Everything else was incorrect. However, looking at where she was buried, she was buried in the same cemetery as her parents. Also, the informant on the record was taken from hospital records. I am convinced that this is the correct person's death record, given the fact that anyone could have given that info to the hospital, it is possible that they may not have known for sure the correct information. Would come to the same conclusion?
It sounds like you’re on the right track, and you’re smart to pay attention to the informant! I’d follow up with more research - cemetery records, obituaries, etc. - just to be sure.
@@AmyJohnsonCrow I did. It is the right person. Just all the wrong info on the death certificate.
Findagrave does actually does bit of checking. You can't add a person as their own spouse and if the dates don't match, a warning shows up.
There are those checks, but FindAGrave does not verify that a person added as someone’s spouse, parent, or child is actually correct. You could take a random memorial and attach it as the father of someone; FindAGrave doesn’t check.
When I first started doing online family research in the mid-2000s, through Ancestry and RootsWeb and other such sites, I didn't know you couldn't take everything in other people's family trees as gospel, so added those lines gleefully -- look, we're related to Welsh kings! Until I started looking closely at dates (how could this woman have given birth to that child when the mother's birth date is after the child's? And why do these two trees have completely different parents for this child? And why does that other tree say they were born in Ireland and this one says they were born in colonial South Carolina?). I did a lot of deleting! And got pretty discouraged. Now, researching the last 4-5 generations has been easier because of family documents and good Actual Records, but I have a big disclaimer on all my trees that anything past that level is subject to error and User Beware.
I get very frustrated with sites like FamilySearch and WikiTree that let other people add to "my" tree. I realize we all share hundreds to thousands of "cousins" and so only part of my tree is really "mine." But the bits I've added to FS and WT are those bits for which there is a high level of confidence. If you add your 6-greats grandfather as my 5-greats' father, if you're just plopping it there without adequate, reliable resources, then JUST DON'T. Leave it alone until you have solid proof. FamilySearch is notorious for people adding to trees without bothering to check their sources. And even though WikiTree tries really hard to make sure people aren't adding profiles erroneously, mistakes get made all the time. But in both those cases, unlike Ancestry, my tree isn't MY tree, so I can't do much.
And Find-a-Grave ... don't get me started. Generally a reasonable resource, but when my aunt recently passed away, I discovered a non-relation had created a memorial for her years before she died by just going through the cemetery where her husband was buried and adding her in -- it's a shared headstone, and her name was already on it, with her birthdate and a blank spot left for having her death date added after that happens (which, as I mentioned, now has, but it's not been added yet). So the non-related person just assumed her death date was unknown and created a memorial with "unknown" as her death date, while my aunt was still alive and kicking. Fortunately, I managed to get her to transfer the memorial to me.
SO yep, lots of assumptions get made and lots of mistakes, too. We have to be diligent to do the footwork and make sure we're using reliable sources.
I’ve had much better success with WikiTree than the FamilySearch tree. Not to say that it’s perfect - no resource is perfect! - but the atmosphere there is so much more receptive to collaboration. Unfortunately, the FamilySearch tree is becoming a dumping ground without any real concerted effort to collaborate.
Like you I was the same until I found the new definition of 'phantom pregnancy,' A child who was born after the death of both parents usually by a considerable amount of years. And don't get me started on the ancestors who had way too young to have had children or the mixed up families who lived in two locations at the same time! So who belongs to whom? So now, I have really started to look closely, it's amazing how many false ancestors there are. If there are no records then it is a fantasy, if there are then check and check again.
I take Ancestry information with a few grains of salt because the information is from someone just like me and I never talked to my great grandparents at the time in question. I question when the Thomas' were in Indiana in the 1800s when three different Thomas families lived in one small town and many had the same first and last names. What one is mine and what one is my uncle or someone with the same last name? I have seen trees where a family might have 10 children and yet you see three of the children is repeated. As always thanks.
There are about three sites I don't use at all. Netherlands something-or-other; another one that is very similar to it; and sometimes Gene-something-or-other. Sorry, but since I never use them I've forgotten what they're called! I made the mistake when I first started off using the Netherlands one and good Lord. I had to trim back several branches to almost nothing after a while it was so bad. Even the "potential" father or mother that pops up I scrutinize. I can't tell you how many times the "potential" father was the person themselves and the "mother" was the person's wife.
Question
Do children need to have there parents last name or is it optional
I would say it depends upon the laws in place where and when the birth occurred.
Thanks I was assuming Ancestry n FSearch researched their info. Good to know. I've questioned several of my "Family Search ,/ Family Tree listings. One goes back to the 4th century. Many extended matriarchal or grandmother's go back to England n royalty. I wonder if this is strategic info baiting for ratings / customers. Now this info I've discovered are "POSSIBILITIES" . LOL Thanks 👍☕
FamilySearch makes me very frustrated sometimes. People have been building trees related to my family and they are going back into the 1100s with multiple wives and children that could not have been in the same family. Sometimes trying to dig past all those clues that keep popping up in FamilySearch makes me want to stop looking. I am not as bothered on Ancestry with these clues popping up and can get around them. Talking about your "connection" to Elvis, I think a lot of people just want to have famous people or royalty in their trees and if it pops up they add it.
I tend to ignore the FamilySearch tree unless I’m looking for clues about one specific person. I spend 95% of my time there focused on the records - I’m very thankful for those!
I hear you there! A woman added a person to my tree who has not been verified with ANY documentation and she won't remove them. Family Search won't let ME remove them. This woman even personally emailed me and was harassing, yet they say it doesn't qualify for blocking her. NO ONE should be allowed to add or change MY tree without my permission 😤
@@bluekimchiandrea Agree 100%.
@@bluekimchiandrea FamilySearch family tree is a one world tree. It is not our tree. Our family is just a branch on it.
@@bluekimchiandrea Unfortunately FamilySearch doesn't see the trees we start as "our" trees -- they're considered one big family tree and we are "collaborators". For me, at this point, I'm like Amy -- ignoring the trees, leaving them alone for the most part, using the records. But it's super frustrating.
Amen, brilliant
You have to learn to take things with a grain of salt then do your own research.... always! Everything is a tool!! Even when I make a mistake the family tree doesn't always make it easy to correct. No process is perfect!! Just enjoy the ride and do your own research!!
You are correctly right. I had been searching on Ancestry for awhile. The other night I went to family tree. On that page it went all the way back to 1700s. I had never seen this before. At the very beginning it showed a house. Person name lived in the house. I do not know if this was the truth maybe someone put it there. How can you tell if this was the real thing. Help. I am getting old. I need to locate some history for my family before I die. Hope and pray not any time soon
If it's a tree, look at what sources are attached to it. If you're looking at a record, evaluate who created a record (could they really know what they were talking about) and if you're looking at the actual record or just Ancestry's index/transcript. The important thing is to work from what you know (recent generations) and work your way methodically to what you don't know. Don't try to go from your grandparents and then skip back to the 1700s. You need to work on each generation along the way, evaluating what you find.
@@AmyJohnsonCrow Thank you. I knew you will give me answer I am looking for. I was able to get copy of my grandmothers death certificate on both sides. It is a different story about my granddads on both sides. no death certificate. My grandad was married to my grandmother for a long period time. After those periods he left her. He got married to another lady.I was able located her death certificate but not my granddads. Any suggestion. Thanks
Boy! Ain't that the truth! There has been a misconception in my tree for 40-50 years and I'm having a hard time trying to correct it because it's been published as true. Aggh!
Sometimes, the only thing we can do is make sure our own trees are correct.
@@AmyJohnsonCrow -and people need to know that the false information spreads like wildfire. - I have several examples...
Before a test be aware of what types of businesses are obtaining this information.Insurance companies are the biggest buyers because they will sooner than you think decide coverage and cost based on your genetic data.
So glad someone is bringing this up! Who all has your genetic information besides you? Insurance companies? Your boss? The government? Drug manufacturers? And what are they doing with the information? Are they able to buy your cheek swabs?
There are so many unsourced trees. Then, other people just copy that tree. Then, Ancestry sends you 'hints'; based upon faulty information.
I am now very suspicious as to why those trees are there as they are mainly unsourced but if you check the sources they are often incorrect. I have never found what relation the tree owner is to that particular tree that actually contain your Ancestors. I routinely ignore family tree hints after a cursory or in depth check. If they were genuine trees they would have contacted me via Ancestry with a view to sharing information.
The trees are there because so many people attach hints (including from other trees) without any thought as to whether it’s correct or not.
@@AmyJohnsonCrow Hi, Amy, I really meant the actual trees, they actually have my Ancestors in them but even with a DNA match no one has ever replied or if they do it is not with a view to actually sharing information. I cancelled my DNA, left it a couple of years and some of my more treasured matches are no longer a match and the highest match now is totally unfathomable. The rest of the top ones are people who when I contacted them in the first DNA test match just asked for my Email address and to share my tree. I used to tell them who I was descended from in our trees and give lots of information, I learnt the hard way not to do this but it was a painful and slow realisation that DNA matches haven’t helped me in any way. Sorry but true.
Over the years I've learned that the trees are not reliable and only use them if I'm hitting a brick wall to look for sources. Source citations are practically non-existent. Too many inexperienced family historians. I prefer to do my own research and make my own decisions on the information that I find and add to my tree. I have a cousin who trolls the internet and adds everything he finds to his tree. I've mentioned to him several times that his findings do not match up to the census, birth, death and marriage records. But he swears that he's correct in his findings. I no longer share information with him and certainly do not use any information he gives me. As so many of you have said, use with a grain of salt.
This is interesting as when I say 'according to ancestry/xyz' I mean this is what I found on this site, don't take it as accurate/correct. Otherwise I would say 'according to these records'.
My phrase is, "If you can believe anything on Ancestry..."
Where do you find the truth about your own ancestry's records?
Excellent question! First, be methodical and work from the known to the unknown. Compare what you already know about a person to what any new record says. For example, if you're confident that your ancestor died in Ohio in 1905, he probably isn't living in Massachusetts in 1960. As you're looking at records, consider how that information fits in with what you know, but also consider the accuracy of the record. Was it created by someone who would have known what they were talking about? Are you looking at the actual record, or just an index/abstract/transcript? It's all about evaluation.
Twenty thumbs up on this one!
That’s why I don’t like the trees. There are several errors in them. The records especially from church registers are what one should check. I don’t use Ancestry as it gives not much on India. Transcription errors are a common thing in all online databases.
Sorry, but FamilySearch IS reviewing the accuracy of their trees. I have had instances where I found a distant cousin, added them to my tree (through lines only) went back to add documentation and more information, and the information I got had been changed. I am sure FamilySearch would be upset to hear you say they don’t review their trees. It isn’t just changes from other people making changes, a volunteer from LDS makes changes as well from time to time if information posted is not accurate. Of course they can’t review ALL of the information, but they DO review some of if. I personally have seen MANY changes on my tree that LDS have made. Ancestry, no they don’t review it. FamilySearch DOES. Only you won’t see it unless you go back to that same ancestor! If you just take that info and add it to your ancestry tree, you just never see how they (LDS) HAVE made changes. Trust me. Seen it often. Unfortunately RelativeFinder (LDS) does not make changes, but FamilySearch DOES. And I am not associated with FamilySearch in any way, other than somebody using their site for my research.
The FamilySearch tree is added to and edited by the users of the tree. FamilySearch does not, as an organization, review the tree. Yes, some FamilySearch volunteers go through and make changes. However, FamilySearch does not have a department of people going through and vetting the tree for accuracy. There is no formal review process.
I tried Ancestry at the end every person on the tree i asked my ancestors
I believe neither. My grandmother was married to one man Ancestry says 2. The wont let me change it.
👍
Trees are good for a laugh anyway
Um, duh. Not even listening to the rest of this. If someone says according to Ancestry or Familysearch without more information, they haven't done their homework. It's that simple. More than likely they copied it from other peoples' trees, which aren't necessarily right. That is even true of Familysearch's big tree though that is less likely to be wrong. One can check and see how well backed up it is with citations to actual documents. One needs to look out for just believing Ancestry hints, too. They often mix up people, and may mix up two people, one of whom moved to Canada, so that Ancestry has no records on the actual person you're researching.
On the other hand, if someone says, according to the census, social security records, and draft records, and other specific records that they found on Ancestry, thats good.
I myself say according to Ancestry Family Trees to let people know that I didn't look further into it and the information may be wrong.
I’m glad you realize that Ancestry and FamilySearch don’t verify things in their trees or always give accurate hints. In my experience in working with people for nearly 30 years, I can assure you that it isn’t obvious to everyone.
Skip first 01:30 minutes of constant repetition.
Harsh
No need for rudeness.
Or find another page to troll
What you (eventually) said is right and useful, but it took you 1:45 of ... verbiage to get to your point.
Oh well