Posted by FamilyHistoryFour on Saturday, March 30, 2019 in Hints & Tips
In your search to find a missing ancestor or a spouse maiden name have you had a peek at someone else's online family tree, only to find a hum-dinger of an error? Do the number of errors found in other people’s trees frustrate you to the point that you refrain from using online trees as a research tool? Yes, me too.
The turn in direction of my family history research has meant that I had to re-think this view as my research is now dependent on other people’s public trees.
None of us are safe from errors in our genealogy research so how do we protect ourselves. I have adopted a pragmatic approach to researching other people’s trees:
- The first is to expect there to be errors in other people’s trees
- Treat each new find as a hint and not a fact then do the due diligence
- Check for the sources of information, if the person is not sourced then move quickly on
- Review the source(s) attached to person. See how the information lines up with what you’ve found so far, and determine for yourself if the other user has come to an accurate conclusion
- Proactively search Public Members Trees on Ancestry. (Unable to find if you can search public members in FindMypast)
In the Ancestry website select Search - Public Members Trees – you will land on a page with a search screen that you will be familiar with. This database contains family trees submitted to Ancestry by users who have indicated that their tree can be viewed by all Ancestry subscribers.
Another options on this page is to search the private members trees. This database contains family trees submitted to Ancestry by users who have indicated that their tree is searchable and can only be viewed by Ancestry members to whom they have granted permission to see their tree.
Finally, you can search public members photos and scanned documents.
Notes:
- Remember these trees can change over time as users edit, remove, or otherwise modify the data in their trees.
- You can contact the owner of the tree to get more information.
