Why you should delete people from your family tree
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- čas přidán 10. 09. 2024
- Why do we keep all these people in our family trees?
At one point, I had close to six thousand individuals in my public tree on ancestry.com. Some branches of my public tree were meticulously researched over many years, but others are merely copied from other trees, or represent basic, easy-to-reproduce research that I no longer maintain because I don’t really care about those people.
When I look at a person in my public tree, I ask myself three questions:
1) Am I making a significant contribution to the person or lineage?
2) If I’m not making a big contribution, have I at least done enough due diligence to feel confident that the information on my tree is correct?
3) If I haven’t done my due diligence, then do I really care about this person or lineage?
If I can’t answer yes to at least one of those questions, I delete that person from my tree.
Why? What harm is it to have some extra branches in my tree?
Genealogy today is really a crowd-sourced exercise-we all borrow and rely upon the work of others, adding our unique contributions here and there. That means we copy errors from other trees, and errors in our tree can be copied elsewhere, magnifying the mistake.
That’s the harm, and it is extremely difficulty to stop the spread of an error because... well, large parts of most trees are just copied, and the owners of those trees don’t really care about the branch with the error.
More important, the repetition of the error can create an illusion of truth: the more times you see the erroneous lineage, the more likely you will believe it to be true.
It’s all a bit of a vicious circle.
Thank you! You've just explained the difference between a serious researcher and a hobbyist. Ancestry.com, while useful within the context of crowd-sourcing, is much the same as Wikipedia - though I would argue that Wikipedia, with all its flaws, tends to be more accurate (though I would never use either as a source).
This is an excelent answer to "What is wrong with someone coping another person entire tree." People don't have a vested interesting ensuring the accuracy and/or upkeep of people that they are not related and not important to them.
I'm always cleaning up my tree.
Oh, so you're only talking about dead people on my family tree?
It's really the living ones who are a pain.
We all understand that pain 😂😂
I discovered a flaw in my ancestry passed down from a much older 2nd cousin that I see all the time. His story states that Theophilus Spencer (1732-1793) of RI and NY married Elizabeth Matteson (1744-Aft.1800) d/o Abraham Matteson (1719-1776) and Freelove Philips (1725-1776). Freelove is a gateway ancestor to George Soule who arrived aboard the Mayflower so I can see the allure of this path. The problem? Math. Theophilus, a great name to chase, married in 1758 so he was 25-26. The 1744 Elizabeth, however, would have been 13-14. While technically possible, the marriage record does not explicitly state her father's name (for permission) and 13-14 was very young for a marriage. I never did the math and it didn't strike me wrong until I did. And, besides, yuck. I know creepy is possible, but it doesn't feel right.
How did I find out? I decided to complete the Mayflower Society application. Wasn't sure I was really going to apply but I thought it would be an interesting exercise. When I came to her I found she married someone else about 1764 and moved to Vermont. She would have been 20 in 1764. That's a much more sane number. Plus, the the records that put the daughter of Freelove in VT.
I had to prune a huge branch off my tree as a result and start over. I mourned the 'loss' of a Mayflower connection but I'd rather have the truth than a borrowed connection. I discussed this issue with some others claiming descent from her and no one has changed their tree. So I look like the odd one out now. I *think* my Elizabeth Matteson was born about 1735 to Joseph Matteson (Abraham's 1st cousin) and Martha Greene. I think; still working on that part.