Advice if poss re Ancestry

I don’t understand these updates. My closest cousin has being omitted from my close family even though she is still listed on other family members which still include me.

Oh sorry nanna8 it's just that I can't understand how it's possible to research thousands of people with any accuracy. I've just looked and one or two of my (four) trees are less than 200 people, but the lives of the direct ancestors have been tracked to the nth degree! Every census, every place they've worked or lived researched, relatives contacted, stories written in detail with photographs.

Some of their siblings have been done in that much detail too, but not all. If there are 9 or 11 children then I sometimes just put the basic details of birth, marriage and death. I don't always want to research such huge families in detail unless they are especially interesting for some reason.

Ph1lomena

Make sure you make sure that the hints definitely relate to your ancestor. Looking at other family trees highlighted by hints can highlight all sorts of inaccuracies where people have just added information without checking it's fact. I have all the historical paperwork for the maternal side of my family so I know the actual details but one example was my Grandfather acquiring a middle name he didn't have in someone else's tree.

I would agree with this I have two families with the same name even my great grandmothers x4 had the same Christian name and Ancestry insist on joining the two together even on through lines and giving me relevant clues to families I have not got round to. I have complained at least 4 times and they have taken no notice. Hope you get some luck.

Thanks Chestnut, I think that is good advice. My main tree is on tribal pages and is private but what you say is right, I have had a lot of photos taken ( I don’t really mind this so long as they are actual distant relatives ) . My tree is very large now, about 8,000 or so so now I am concentrating on building up info on each individual rather than expanding the connections. DNA is good and I have met some of my distant cousins here in Australia, which is always a pleasure.

nanna8

I use ancestry for researching my tree and sometimes I don’t correct mistakes or forget I have made them because it is not my main tree. Lo and behold people copy my mistakes and claim them as part of their trees. I always check every single thing from other people’s trees because there are a lot of inaccuracies, particularly some of our American cousins who like to trace things back to the UK.

Unless your tree has been checked and double checked for accuracy then it's probably best to make it a private tree. People will always copy information from a public tree, and they will take photos and anything else from it, whether the info is right or wrong.

My Ancestry trees are all private trees, one tree for each grandparent. I encourage people to contact me if they are related to anyone on my trees, then I will send them an invitation to see the tree. I am confident there are no errors (as much as humanly possible) as I couldn't live with myself if I gave people the wrong information. They are not massive trees (about 200-250 each) just direct ancestors and their siblings' families, but they are accurate. When I see trees of 5,000 or even 20,000 sometimes, I keep well clear because I know they will be nonsense. You cannot research that many people.

Some good advice on this thread about being cautious of other people's trees. I use Ancestry and I can usually tell if trees with my ancestors in are wrong. I don't put my trees on line. They are for me and my family as they do contain information gleaned from various places on the Internet, not all of it checked. I am happy with it though. It is huge and I have my own way of recording it on Word. I have fan charts for direct ancestors, then work sideways to find siblings and their families. Most of mine stayed close to their native areas, and I know the places well, which helps. Just Googling a name and year of birth can be quite productive, then I go to Ancestry to do some checking. I am quite obsessed with it and have traced families for friends and to try and solve family mysteries.

Someone living in the Uk got in touch with me, and we proved that we were quite closely related, so I sent him the details of our common tree. We then corresponded about our subsequent research. I told him I thought I may have found something about a further common relative, who was in my direct line, but a sibling on his, but soon after that I discovered that I had been wrong. Too late! He had already put the "fact" into public view on a local genealogy page, under the byline "X's research" - X being him, not me!! I contacted the page to give them the correct info, and had the satisfaction of seeing his withdrawn.

I use ancestry for researching my tree and sometimes I don’t correct mistakes or forget I have made them because it is not my main tree. Lo and behold people copy my mistakes and claim them as part of their trees. I always check every single thing from other people’s trees because there are a lot of inaccuracies, particularly some of our American cousins who like to trace things back to the UK.

I'm afraid you can't tell them, they don't want to know. If they've done their tree then that's it, no amendments required.

I told someone he had my grandparents and all their children on his tree (my mother and her siblings). None of them were related to his family. He never bothered to remove them. Complete idiots, the lot of them.

I had a very long discussion with someone who had my great-great grandmother in his tree married first to my great great grandfather then to his ancestor!
As my great great grandfather lived until his 80s and they didn't get divorced it was obviously wrong.

But he would not listen and his tree is published on the web.
Different place of birth too.

Some people's research is very slapdash but they are adamant they are right.

I have more wandering relatives, too, who appear in other trees with different husbands, wives and umpteen children.
Possible but highly unlikely especially for a woman.

What do you do when you discover your ancestors are on someone elses family tree?

I was disconcerted to discover my unmarried great aunt on someone's family tree as the wife of their grandfather and therefore their relative. needless to say this was in the US.

Of course, place of registration is not necessarily where your ancestor was born. Most babies were born at home and registration would be in the nearest large town.

Although civil registration was introduced in 1837, it was not until 1874 that the registration of a birth became compulsory. Between these dates, children may not have been registered. There was in fact a loophole as the act was not fully understood and people genuinely thought that to have a child baptised was to register that child. The 1874 Act made registration compulsory within a 6 week period and imposed a fine for non-compliance.

www.sog.org.uk/learn/guides/how-to-search-for-birth-marriage-and-death-certificates-1/

The mapping facility is very prone to errors. Be very careful when entering a place for birth, baptism, marriage, death, burial. If in the UK you must put the town and county! For instance, Chelsea should not be London, it should be Chelsea, Middlesex. If you write 'London' for anything the map won't recognise it (unless things have changed).

So London is either Middlesex or Essex, (north of the river) Surrey or Kent (south of the river). For everywhere else, write the county as if you were 100 years ago. Then the mapping will show the correct place for the event.

If you get it wrong then your British ancestor will suddenly get married or die in the USA even though they've never been there. Seen it dozens of times because people don't bother to check their work.

I havent done any research for a while so must look for the luggage label, thank you * Cabbie*.
Yes, it's annoying zipping through pages of hints to find any relevant ones.

Don't believe everything you read on Ancestry, particularly from family trees across the pond

I agree - in fact don't believe anything until you've cross-checked it.

According to a couple of American trees, I'm related to all these people in the USA I've never heard of or found in research and we're all descended from Anne Boleyn. 👸
My great grandparents did emigrate to America but came back again - I have records to prove that!

Does anyone think the Hints process is a bit clumsy? The Ignore button doesn’t seem to do what it says and names come round again. Ditto No when it prob is someone relevant to my tree but I don’t want to add these relations.
PS I can’t find the Luggage label function kindly mentioned by Cabbie

Never believe someone's Ancestry tree unless you research yourself to check their findings, because 50% of them are absolute fairy stories. Their own close family may be correct, which is where you may find helpful information, but the rest of their tree may be way out.

Spot on elegran. Some people on these trees are born before their grandparents. I think it tends to be American users who latch on to a name and add it to their tree without any research, but doubtless they’re not the only culprits.

Don't believe everything you read on Ancestry, particularly from family trees across the pond. I have been "reliably" informed that people in my tree went to the States and lived the rest of their lives there, when I have known them personally in the Uk, and they never travelled further than the next county.

There are people who collect relations as though they want to join up to the whole world. They contact an Ancestry tree-owner who has someone whose name (by marriage) corresponds with a member of their (extensive) family tree, and get access to their tree, the whole of which they join onto their own, without doing any source checking. They then have hundreds more names, some of which are (by marriage) the same as a name in yet another Ancestry member's tree - so they repeat the process.

It is as though there is a prize for the most relations - even if they are only the most tenuously linked.

You don’t need to subscribe to fmp to view the 1921 census. Subscribers get a small discount on the price of viewing entries.

I have had 1921 census results (paid) but don't pay FMP subscription.

Definitely make sure the hints are correct.

I can clearly remember my great grandfather but have found several trees with his death 15 years before I was born.

The 1921 census is already on 'find my past'. have to have a subscription though and then pay again to view record, so pricey. I'm with ancestry and hope they will get it soon within the subscription

Make sure you make sure that the hints definitely relate to your ancestor. Looking at other family trees highlighted by hints can highlight all sorts of inaccuracies where people have just added information without checking it's fact. I have all the historical paperwork for the maternal side of my family so I know the actual details but one example was my Grandfather acquiring a middle name he didn't have in someone else's tree.

I didn't know about luggage label either so thanks.I've been researching for 12 years so should have seen it by now!! I do add everyone that come up in hints and have found some very interesting things that way.I did contact them last week to ask when the 1921 census will be added and they can't give a date as yet.I do like the information I got from doing a DNA test.

It is accessed via the “ luggage label”.