This popular Ancestry feature could RUIN your family tree

There's a popular feature on Ancestry .com that can really help you discover more of your family tree... or completely mess it up. Learn what this feature is and how to use it to find more of your ancestors.

Timestamps:
0:00 - A quick look at Ancestry's record page
1:11 - Where Ancestry's Suggested Records come from
2:32 - Why Suggested Records can be a problem
3:08 - How to tell if the Suggested Records are accurate or not

#genealogy #familyhistory #ancestry

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[melanierice]

Than you for encouraging researchers to evaluate evidence before adding it to their trees! Even Ancestry hints may not apply to the ancestor referenced.

[TheWirdbird]

Actually looking at the census is a good way to find out if there were other family members living next door or a few houses down.

[BillTxn]

This is an important lesson. Occasionally, new hints will appear on profiles I have worked in the past, so before I check out the hint, I take a couple of minutes to review the facts I have about the individual just to refresh my memory. That way, I can be more certain of the relevance of the new hint.

[pamelawing]

My SIL has done the genealogy for our family and one thing she DID say was, be careful of going too far down a wrong path. She learned that when she first started and has gotten much better at knowing what is real. It's been really interesting. She's gotten great info as census' become available. It's been interesting, very enlightening, some skeletons have emerged. LOVE those. One thing that CAN create a problem is birth records. My mom was born at home so no birth certificate but there WAS a record in the family Bible that we found. Anyway, it's a ton of fun.

[debbieroot]

Too bad there isn't a "not my guy" button.

[jamesturner]

I find this to be so true! I actually started our family research in 1982. Some people are quick to pass on information which is inaccurate too. Just because something is online doesn’t make it true. On the other hand I have been helped by someone who has already done good research. Thank you for making this observation about Ancestry.

[rikwen]

This is good information for people researching their family tree. Just like today's families, people ended up with the same name because the name was popular at the time or belonged to a noted hero/celebrity/military figure. Case for my family, I can't tell you how many George Washington (last name) my tree has who may have family members with the same name or just another person with the same name. The one thing Ancestry has changed that I do not like is the easy ability to review the census reports. Yes, I can still get in there with extra steps. But I have learned over time that if I check on several pages on either side of my ancestor, I may very well find another ancestor living in the same area. I have also found married daughters this way. It takes a lot of digging some times to find ancestors when they can be in plain sight.

[johnwoods]

It is not just Ancestry suggestions you can be misled by. It really applies to trusting the trees uploaded in MyHeritage, FindMyPast, FamilyTreeDNA, GEDmatch, Geneanet, etc. The sources offered in FamilySearch can also be misleading too, especially if the surname of your ancestor is a common one.

[Kinsfire]

Good tip on checking out the actual image. I used those once to verify that an ancestor with a VERY common name was, in fact, my ancestor. Two different ones. One census image from when she was a child, living with a family where the woman had a somewhat unusual name. A later census that I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt was my ancestor, where that exact same woman was living with my ancestor's family. Can't trace that ancestor back further, unfortunately, because she was full-blood Native American, and her tribe never got any sort of information to the tribe they joined up with. (Tutelo joining the Cayuga, in NY state.)

[LesleyDT]

This was me in my early days researching my trees. In fact my original tree was so wrong I had to start again. Terrific videos. Very helpful - happy to have found your site.

[annes]

I get really frustrated when I try to look for my great great grandmother. I have her name, marriage certificate, and death certificate. She also shows up in census records and in the proper cemetery records. All verified with family records from my grandmother. However, people on Ancestry have attached her to records for some other woman who died in a completely different state. In doing so, they have changed her maiden name to her married name, or given her a completely different spouse. I know what I am looking for, but Ancestry relies on their trees to make suggestions. (Yes, sometimes I want to scream!)

[KimberlyGreen]

_Loved_ your lamp / snow shoe analogy.
This same "due diligence" is why I _never_ connect another user's tree as a "source". It could contain wrong information, either at the attachment time, or go wonky later on.

[Emy]

I totally "review" ALL documents, no matter what they are. There are so many people with same names. I check the dates of birth and other family members attached to any document. It gets confusing because many families shared their name generation after generation. I have two sets of great and great grandfather's with same exact name...

[pgl]

Thank you for this video. I’ve had trouble over the years with many people inserting incorrect information in publicly shared family trees and this leads to the recurring spread of more of the same.
I’ve had to make my tree private so that the hard work I’ve put in isn’t misappropriated, only to find that some distant relative I granted access to has a publicly shared tree of their own that someone else has pillaged and picked piecemeal information.

[anneahlert]

I like the analogy of the online purchases (lamp and snowshoes). That's a good way to explain the gullibility of algorithms.

Once more, same-name confusion and the errors in "other people's trees" can find a way to creep into our own.

Verify, verify, VERIFY!

[richardesposito]

Thanks so much for your help with this! I am quite new at the fam. tree program and I did make a bit of a "train wreck" with the new DNA influenced tree. And as you mention here this is one of there reasons my mistakes along with thinking others and the AI hint had the correct answers. I added plenty of docs from a few years back obtained from church records or other sources I paid for. Focusing on Italian gp and gg+ parents which is more difficult to obtain at the get go. My problem is that I was enamored/excited with the data and a bit pressured to get data before the ancestry subscription ran out! So in a hurry to push the buttons with out some basic lessons? Then learn to make a practice tree or two first. I have my grandkids label with my brothers name, and who knows what else. Great lessons here for other newbies and thought I would share here. Thanks again and kind regards, Rich

[kerryjlynch]

I actually have an ancestor who was "two different people, " in a way. It took a while to figure it all out. He brought two wives & their children from England to the US. Apparently, there were men in Victorian England who took two wives because there were limited men due to wars, & women had so few opportunities. He put them in separate houses in Chicago. Eventually, his first wife (one of my heroes) took her children to Kansas & established farms that are on "England Road."

[mcrawd]

I have a family members 3 generations back that lived in the same rural town/area as a another family that had multiple siblings and same last name. Unortunately both families had three sons that shared the same first names and birthdays within several years of each other. So many people imported the wrong family members into their trees that anyone trying to do research either of these families is in for a huge effort to make sure your going down the right family line vs a very confusing rabbit hole.

[Gancanna]

Wise advice. I ran into something like that today when using the member connect feature to look for other Ancestry Members (and potential relatives) researching the same people.
I already had a death certificate for a 3rd GGF with parents listed as Evan and Catherine as well as a death date of 1925. Several hints popped up with the 3rd GGF's father's name as being Martin. Every one in the small group of trees that I found had apparently used those hints without reviewing them and had an unsourced death date of 1920.

Using that "Ancestry Members Trees" features as a source as opposed to specifying the documents is also unwise if only for the fact that if people take their trees down, your sources are also gone.

[JT]

Looking at the actual image is SO important - have come across numerous instances where the information has transcribed incorrectly.