Ancestry.com users: a word of caution

[Jayhawker Soule]

Genealogy is not an Easter egg hunt where one scurries around collecting hints.

When offered a hint, check sources, particularly when that hint is labeled "Ancestry member trees" or "Find A Grave." Sites such as Ancestry and MyHeritage can be a lot of fun, but they can also be a minefield of misinformation.

(end of rant)

 

[Callisto]

Genealogy is not an Easter egg hunt where one scurries around collecting hints.

When offered a hint, check sources, particularly when that hint is labeled "Ancestry member trees" or "Find A Grave." Sites such as Ancestry and MyHeritage can be a lot of fun, but they can also be a minefield of misinformation.

(end of rant)

I've been on ancestry for several years and pay very little attention to other family trees. So many people are WAY wrong and even more do ZERO research, they just copy what they saw on another tree. Rarely do I include family trees. At most, I'll look at trees if they have a relative I've hit a roadblock with, just to see what they've managed to verify. Most of the time they don't have anything beyond the person's name and no indication where they got that name. Other times, I know their info is flat-out wrong because I've already unearthed documents (bibles, census, news articles, etc.) that confirm something else. Sometimes I'll add an unsupported name if it's an ancestor from centuries ago but I add a ? so I know that I need to see if this is a legit clue I need to look into.

Find-a-grave is ok if the page is managed by someone who actually researched the gravesite and supports the info (e.g., with photos).

 

[Revoltingest]

I've no interest in my family history.
It would be so even if I dint expect
my ancestors to all be criminals,
wastrels, hobos, & drunkards.

Hobos would be cool though.

 

[Callisto]

I've no interest in my family history.
It would be so even if I dint expect
my ancestors to all be criminals,
wastrels, hobos, & drunkards.

Hobos would be cool though.

Sometimes finding scoundrels can be fascinating, though. What I find frustrating is roadblocks, I can trace one side of the family back literally hundreds of years, no problem; the other side of the family I've only traced back to the early 1800s. That's maddening.

 

[bobhikes]

Even before Ancestry and the others started, Genealogy was a crap shoot. Family members would not have the correct dates or spellings of names. I would constantly have to update. Even myself, I created a family book and I swapped my brothers birth dates(not the years) accidently and published it like that. They both have close October birthdays. I check other tree's but now only add if I can verify some way.

 

[Callisto]

Even before Ancestry and the others started, Genealogy was a crap shoot. Family members would not have the correct dates or spellings of names. I would constantly have to update. Even myself, I created a family book and I swapped my brothers birth dates(not the years) accidently and published it like that. They both have close October birthdays. I check other tree's but now only add if I can verify some way.

Censuses can be incorrect too, especially when in rural and blue-collar areas. I can collect multiple census for the same person and things like their birth year, name or race can differ from one to the next. Census takers wrote down what (they think) they heard and, given some of the creative spellings, were not always particularly literate themselves.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Sometimes finding scoundrels can be fascinating, though. What I find frustrating is roadblocks, I can trace one side of the family back literally hundreds of years, no problem; the other side of the family I've only traced back to the early 1800s. That's maddening.

One of my relatives, John Sr., was hung as a loyalist.

His son, John Jr., faced a much different fate. The young man wanting to marry his daughter asked John Jr. for his permission. John Jr. said no, so the suitor apparently came back later that night and shot him.

As for roadblocks and brick walls, try finding records of a relative living in a mid-19th century Romanian Shtetl.

 

[Debater Slayer]

As far as I know, Ancestry.com doesn't offer its services in my country, but if I'm like the vast majority of current Egyptians, that means my ancestry most likely traces all the way back to ancient Egypt, although it's quite possible that I also have some Arab, Turkish, Greek, and/or Roman lineage somewhere along the way.

It would be nice to know more details about the lives of my ancestors, but I imagine such services can only trace ancestry so far back before they hit a dead end due to insufficiency or nonexistence of records.

 

[Curious George]

As far as I know, Ancestry.com doesn't offer its services in my country, but if I'm like the vast majority of current Egyptians, that means my ancestry most likely traces all the way back to ancient Egypt, although it's quite possible that I also have some Arab, Turkish, Greek, and/or Roman lineage somewhere along the way.

It would be nice to know more details about the lives of my ancestors, but I imagine such services can only trace ancestry so far back before they hit a dead end due to insufficiency or nonexistence of records.

I am sure you would find that you have lines that trace back to ancient Egypt, but as Egypt was a hub for civilization for nearly all of civilization, I would imagine you would find a lot of diverse stories.

 

[Debater Slayer]

I am sure you would find that you have lines that trace back to ancient Egypt, but as Egypt was a hub for civilization for nearly all of civilization, I would imagine you would find a lot of diverse stories.

Exactly. That's why I wish I could access some of those stories. They would be fascinating to read.

 

[Rachel Rugelach]

Find-a-grave is ok if the page is managed by someone who actually researched the gravesite and supports the info (e.g., with photos).

I've been a volunteer on Find-a-Grave for years taking requests to provide photos for gravestones in Jewish cemeteries, and I've come across some people who post erroneous translations of Hebrew inscriptions. Like, translating the Hebrew abbreviation of ב״ר as "bar" instead of "ben reb." That's probably not so much a big deal, but I've also seen some pretty strange guesses for names on gravestones made by those unfamiliar with old Yiddish names. Some people I've helped (whose families had lost touch with Judaism for a generation or two) were actually surprised to be told that one can discover the name of an ancestor's father from the gravestone's Hebrew inscription, and thus take the family tree back another generation.

 

[Curious George]

Genealogy is not an Easter egg hunt where one scurries around collecting hints.

When offered a hint, check sources, particularly when that hint is labeled "Ancestry member trees" or "Find A Grave." Sites such as Ancestry and MyHeritage can be a lot of fun, but they can also be a minefield of misinformation.

(end of rant)

I think genealogy has always been a mine field of bogus hints and guesses. It is no easy task to trace generations especially where little to no ground work was done. I think ancestry.com, while a very valuable resource, has made many hope for easy answers.

If you are dedicated, take the time to check others work, send them a friendly email when you think they have made a mistake, ask clarifying questions when you can’t find the support.

I am not sure how long you have been investigating family, but even having some misinformation can lead to breakthroughs.

Good luck in your work.

 

[Callisto]

As far as I know, Ancestry.com doesn't offer its services in my country, but if I'm like the vast majority of current Egyptians, that means my ancestry most likely traces all the way back to ancient Egypt, although it's quite possible that I also have some Arab, Turkish, Greek, and/or Roman lineage somewhere along the way.

It would be nice to know more details about the lives of my ancestors, but I imagine such services can only trace ancestry so far back before they hit a dead end due to insufficiency or nonexistence of records.

FamilySearch - Egypt Genealogy might be of some help. And, it's free.

 

[Debater Slayer]

FamilySearch - Egypt Genealogy might be of some help. And, it's free.

Thanks! I'll look into it.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I am not sure how long you have been investigating family, but even having some misinformation can lead to breakthroughs.

Good luck in your work.

I've been working with Ancestry, MyHeritage, wikitree, FamilyTreeDNA, and GEDmatch, since 2016, and, yes, there have been breakthoughs.

I'm at the point where good luck will be a prerequisite. Thanks.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

The free hint I get from them Is my mom's name amd birth year. Her collection of photoalbums are more helpful.

Even before Ancestry and the others started, Genealogy was a crap shoot. Family members would not have the correct dates or spellings of names. I would constantly have to update. Even myself, I created a family book and I swapped my brothers birth dates(not the years) accidently and published it like that. They both have close October birthdays. I check other tree's but now only add if I can verify some way.

My (half) siblings family has the wrong date and location of their father's murder. It was probably to throw off the trail it happened over drugs, but it erases a nasty family trauma as it happened on Christmas.
My dad's family there's very little, and probably have better luck figuring out who the Cherokee woman in the family a few generations back was and going that direction, but that's also assuming she was married with a Cherokee name or having it indicated she was if she was marries as something like Sally or Beatrice.
My mom's mom's family though there's quite a bit going back a few generations. Enough that anyone I've ever met or heard of in Indiana with the family's surname I've been able to trace back how we're related. There's even enough pictures to see how we all resemble one of the same people, who to me are my great grandparents.
Her dad's family, there's some things there but not nearly as much.