When branching your genealogy, go slow or risk having to cut the family tree down.
For those researching their genealogical roots, Ancestry.com offers convenience. They offer access to records, a social media outlet for networking, and positive reinforcement to continue your search.
The advertisements make it sound so easy. Enter a name and some vital information such as a birth date or spouse’s name, and a leaf appears hinting that a record may be attributed to the person you seek. Even the commercials make it appear that Ancestry will map out your entire branch.
If only it were that easy.
You still must determine if the hinted record actually belongs to your person in question. Be prepared to think that it does, only to find another record that proves that it isn’t. For example, you see a census record, attach it to your tree, and proceed to fill in the names of the spouses and children. Then later, you find a will and realize you had the wrong person.
Trying to fix your tree and determine which record should be kept or which record should be ignored will consume a lot of time. In most cases, it will take more time to untangle your branches than it did to grow them. It’s a painful lesson learned to always document, document, document. And document some more until you are absolutely sure or have reached a strong level of confidence.
Which brings us to “user submitted data” such as browsing other family trees, forum posts, “US & International Marriage Records, 1560-1900”, Family Data Collection, and Yates Publishing.
Before I continue, let me make clear that I am not denigrating the hard work others have put into their trees or the information they have publicly shared for others to fact-check. And, I am not faulting Ancestry or Yates Publishing for their “service.” I am recommending that others use them as a resource (a starting point), but not as a source (actual fact).
What is “user submitted data” and why should you be cautious?
First, raiding other family trees and reading forum posts as a resource should be self-evident that other professional or armchair genealogists have submitted their opinion based on an actual record. Hopefully, their source has been referenced for others to find it. In the absence of any citation, information that may have appeared on their source and omitted in their reporting can skew the interpretation of the facts.
For example, I find a marriage record for Ebenezer Geezer and Sally Spinster and write about it in a forum post or add it as a note in my gallery. But there’s more than just the names of the bride and groom, such as where and when were they married? What if I originally misread the dates and location? It now becomes easy for others to latch onto and continue to spread the misinformation.
As for “US & International Marriage Records, 1560-1900”, Family Data Collection, and other data furnished by Yates Publishing, they appear to be official-sounding sources. But they’re also user submitted. If I put Ebenezer Geezer in a family tree and attribute all sorts of erroneous information to him, this unverified data finds its way into databases where it is resold.
Even the fine print provided by Ancestry absolves them of any liability and leaves the verification to their members.
“Millions of individual records were created (while gathering genealogical data for use in the study of human genetics and disease) from birth, marriage and death records; obituaries; probate records; books of remembrance; family histories; genealogies; family group sheets; pedigree charts; and other sources… When you find the name of an ancestor listed, confirm the facts in original sources, such as birth, marriage, and death records, church records, census enumerations, and probate records for the place where the even took place… Despite the absence of cited documentation, the electronic rights to the data were purchased, rather than see it destroyed.”
Essentially, like everything on any other genealogical site or service, they’re hints, not facts. And like every other hint or “fact”… verify, verify, verify.
And verify some more.
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