Genealogy Chat

I didn't mean to say I hate Ancestry generally -- I've subscribed to it for years and I like its search facilities better than any.

It's its totally profit-oriented approach to this family tree business that makes me insane. It's just like the Living Relatives board here. Ancestry's advertising completely misrepresents the whole concept and process of family history -- you plug your grandparent's name into the search engine, and you find that somebody has put your entire family tree on line, complete with pretty pictures of your ancestors. That's certainly how they advertise it here in Canada -- nothing whatsoever about records and primary sources and databases, all about family trees. Bah.

I know I didn't say anything about colonials. ;)

But I do know that my experience is that USAmericans -- many of whom were doing this before records were available on line, and before searchable databases existed -- are disproportionately negligent.

In my own case alone, I have

- that Cornwall ancestor falsely fathering someone in Tennessee;

- a Cheshire ancestor being the grandSON of someone born 250 years later in the US;

a set of ancestors from Wiltshire who are virtually undoubtedly the source of two by the same surname who settled Martha's Vineyard off Massachusetts (other settlers in the party came from the area in Wiltshire in question, the placenames are from that area, one of the two is shown in records on Martha's Vineyard as born in the village in Wiltshire), but who a load of people in the US insist came from Suffolk, for no reason at all than that two names appear in baptism records there around the same time.

That's a pretty high ratio of utter nonsense -- three completely separate lines of my family tree alone!

hi all
people who just copy another persons tree cant really enjoy doing this hobbie
i love it
the searching bit i really enjoy
lorraine

I think it is a good site (when the records have been transcribed correctly) but I think a lot of people just accept the hints rather than actually looking at what they are.

Hence you end up with cousins giving birth to their parents etc, silly things like that.

I don't think having incorrect people on your tree that you have added though lack of checking, laziness or some other excuse is linked to the country in which you are born and I personally think the use of the term Colonials is disparaging really.

I think if you are the kind of person who investigates and checks facts, you will and if you are not, you won't. Some people are so keen to add people that they never check, I don't think you will ever resolve that.

I also get a lack of responses back from messages sent on Ancestry, not sure why, maybe people aren't used to getting messages like they are on this site.

I agree LA Ancestry is a good site when used correctly. I have subscribed since 2005 and wouldn't be without it. I upgraded when Ancestry added LMA's baptisms, marriages and burials...it saved me £s ordering unwanted certs and knocked down that proverbial brick wall.

I purchase credits from FMP when needed.

It is the public/private tree system that is flawed...I received so many hints which were unrelated. Hmmm a bit like the inappropriate Hot Matches we used to receive here : ))))

Linda x

Yes, Janey, I also hate Ancestry, although when my sub for FMP runs out I might take out a 6 month sub to Ancestry, purely for the purpose of being able to see all the trees again and contact people and all the rest of it.

Huia.

Jonesey is absolutely right -- people in the US whose ancestors arrived, presumably from England, before 1800 seem to buy any baloney that Ancestry or anyone else has on offer.

I think Carol was talking about my ancestor back on page 1! He was born in Cornwall in the early 1700s, and married and had kids and died and in fact was the parish clerk there, but managed to have a son with a very different surname in Tennessee. The mind absolutely boggles.

And yes, I started going through the 48 trees at Ancestry that have that nonsense on them, posting a comment asking them to please remove my ancestors from their tree, and why. I got one very nice reply agreeing that a stupid Ancestry hint had been incorrectly accepted, then I lost interest and wandered off.

One other tip for Ancestry -- go to the surname board in question, at the discussion boards, and post a message with a subject line that makes the problem clear -- in my case I said something like

John Smithy 1775 Tennessee NOT son of James Smythe Cornwall

and then when I post comments on the trees with the stupid entries, I give the URL for that message, which explains the whole thing and gives copies of the Cornwall parish records showing that MY John Smythe was born and died in Cornwall, so is NOT their John Smithy of Tennessee.

#$%@ I hate Ancestry and its stupid instant family tree television commercials ...

Oh look! A little leaf on my tree! it MUST be my ancestors!

Yeesh.

Ancestry used to have a facility to show you what famous relaives you might have. I was supposedly related to Presidents GWB and Nixon :(
Fortunately I found that it relied on someone in the 17th century fathering someone who was born a couple of hundred years earlier.

I put comments on some of the trees with my sister in, but the problem is that people just click on 'add hint' without even bothering to look at what they are adding. :-(......I just hope one day they will wake up and do some research themselves.

Huia.

I must say I think Carol's idea of sticking the corrective comment on the other people's trees on Ancestry is an excellent one, can't think why I didn't think of it before! Ancestry do acknowledge the comments on my own trees and I think do something to call attention to the variations on the records.

I have had pleasant and grateful replies to my direct messages to tree owners - but not always!

I made my tree private (on ancestry & Genes) when I realised that someone had taken copies of my photo's and not even asked if they could do it................they may have been distant relatives but they can stay distant now as I have deleted them!!!

I understand the fustrations............privacy Rules!!!

Lesley :D

Well put Jonesey, my thoughts exactly. As I never seem to get replies to my e-mails, I now put comments on their trees, hoping others will see and not copy.

Carol

Has anybody noticed a common thread amongst the trees which contain very obviously inaccurate information?

In my experience a large proportion of the owners of such trees are based in the USA.

Now I am not suggesting for one moment that our colonial cousins are more intellectually challenged than anyone else but their trees do seem to contain a disproportionate number of obvious errors. Perhaps such errors are accepted as fact because of a desire to form a connection to "The old country" or perhaps in an attempt to have the largest number of people in ones tree as possible. Who knows but it can certainly be frustrating to see that someone in the USA has purloined your great granny who was born, raised, and died in Manchester and has transported her across the Atlantic to marry and have children years after her death.

Should you be worried about it? The answer is no.

Should you try to persuade the third party to correct their records? Here I would say that the answer is yes because if you don't then there is every possibility that someone else will copy the inaccurate information into their tree and the myth will be perpetuated.

Not everyone will accept your correction even if supported by reference to census records or BMD registers but some will and will thank you for pointing out their error. Such people are to be congratulated, the others, well perhaps they might deserve our pity.

Would you believe my sister married a man b in 1723, despite the fact that quite a few of the idiots who have that have her father correctly b in 1899? I contacted lots of people with her in their tree but of the few who answered most didnt believe that they had an error. And the error just keeps getting attached to more trees all the time. Grrr.

Huia.

I know where you are coming from Frank, several times I have looked back on my research and found mistakes which I initially made, I am not perfect, that is why I will not put on here anthing that I have not thoroughly researched, as you say with documentation.

Carol

There are some cases where the errors are more subtle and really depend on proper documentation to prove the link rather than a similar birth year.

With the exception of an Old Parish Record , I found all the certificates to prove that my great grandfather was twice married, fathering his last child at the age of 58. The poorly hand written document contained the correct parents, area and approximate date, but it was only when I later obtained a cleaner scan from Scotland's People that I spotted my glaring error................ he was a she!!

"The lawful something of Francis and Elizabeth" turned out to be "Daughter" with the name of Frances, not Francis. :S

The only explanation I could find was that their daughter Frances died in infancy without the death being registered and their son Francis was born the following year without the birth being registered which would go a long way to explaining why the age always appeared to be about a year out and Frances never appeared on a census.

So it's not always down to laziness although sometimes an eye test would help.

Should have gone to Specsavers............ ;-)

Glad I am not the only one who feels like this, must add it is usually people who have extremely large trees. Often the line in question is only very distantly related to them so do not research it. Like you say Karen it is a shame for new researchers, all so easy to copy on line these days. When I started used to travel every week to the Family Record Office, plus visiting Cornwall and Deven twice a year, as my OH and I both originate from there.

Nothing beats the thrill of walking in their footsteps.

Carol

One of the problems with Ancestry is that if you don´t specify that an event has taken place in England, it automatically defaults to a place of the same name in America. That´s how you get people marrying in America & having kids in England & other stupid entries.
It´s so easy not to notice that it has happened. I have seen it on many of the trees that I share ancestors with.
Marion

I can understand how you feel Carol. I have had the same problem. I have had direct links to my tree by someone who although shares the surname has completely different ancestors, unrelated to mine and not even from the same counties. So much so, this person has my grt mother having something like 20 children, 2 non twins born same year and if the calculations are right she had her last child when she was close to 70 years of age..Of course all completely wrong, which we know for fact. I have contacted this person and asked them to remove my ancestors from his tree. Naturally he never responded. While it doesn't particulary bother me that he has these errors, my family and I know who we belong to, however mistakes like these do make for some confusion for others just starting out with their family research.

I can quite understand how you feel Carol...it is so frustrating...so much so I deleted my private tree from Ancestry awhile back. I found so many anomalies on public trees where they had attached my ancestors (different lines) it became a farce ...because the names somehow tied in with what they had found on bmds' or the census however unsourced and so it carried on.

Ooops Jax...one of my ancestors lived in Lancashire all of their life however managed to marry in the US and then sadly die back in Lancashire???

However sometimes it isn't easy to say why worry. I was so so lucky to know my great grandmother until she sadly died at a grand old age when I was in my late teens so when I found gt grandmother and a few of her 12 siblings attached to a tree...then another tree and then another and so on, with completely different parents and so down the line, it became a sensitive issue...well to me anyhow and found it very upsetting.

Because of my gt grandmother I have researched this family line to the hilt...my 2x gt grandfather's birth wasn't registered however I found his baptism...did they...obviously not!

I have tried to contact these Ancestry members in the past mainly for my peace of mind but as yet have had no replies.

Linda x

I know Lindsey, as you say real researchers should see the glaring anomalies, but still worry they don't.

Carol