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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: warncoort on Sunday 13 March 16 07:01 GMT (UK)
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Folks,
This morning i was checking public trees on Ancestry for a very distant relative and came across one that may have had the information i wanted.I should have known that a tree with 32,000 people may not be a real deal but pressed on and found citations for everyone was Ancestry Public Trees.I went back to the tree a couple more times then discovered i had mixed the number of people up,it should read 324,421.
I contacted the owner who said he had only researched his paternal line.
I am discombobulated!
Eric
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How do you keep track of that :o :o
Who added all those other folk ???
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How do you keep track of that :o :o
Who added all those other folk ???
The green leaf fairies..... ;D
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............. or as someone (Erato I think) called it recently - 'Leaf Litter' ;D
Carol
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Your original number of 30k I don't think is impossible if you were at it long enough and researched the siblings of each generation and their descendents which I have started doing.
Although this particular tree doesnt sound like it's accurate to 300 never mind 300.
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What got up my nose was that the owner thought he had done well by tracing his paternal line!! I classify research as 30 minutes per person if things go well,hours for some so the owner needs to start his research before he was born.
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Methinks a few leaves may fall on this one :)
Lets hope it contains no rot.
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Hi Eric,
it can be horrendous looking at some of the trees on Ancestry - where do they get all these people from ?? I think they must include "grannies cats". (tongue in cheek). You look at their sources and all you get is "Ancestry Family Trees" no other information. What kind of research is that - lazy, sloppy, just to get the numbers up to name but a few.
I have trees on Ancestry which I have deliberately kept private. If anyone is really interested they have to contact me and I decide if I want to share my info. If they seem like serious researchers who care about proving their sources then I will contact them. Not being selfish just careful. I have made some great contacts this way and we help each other. Don't bother with those who have been researching a couple of weeks and have thousands of people in their trees.
By the way I have just had a lovely email through Ancestry today from a lady in Alabama who is researching my O/H's family and asking if there is a connection. There is and I will be in touch with her.
Dorrie
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There should be a 'caveat emptor' warning on Ancestry trees. They can be a useful shortcut to sources if you are lucky, but more often are a total waste of time. Many of the sources are other similar trees, sometimes no longer online, with no original source shown. I still have a few unsourced 'facts' in my tree from an unwise GEDCOM download about ten years ago.
I thought I'd found something interesting a few days ago but then discovered the person had an identical twin with the same exact name who had died, then had two more children before dying again many years later ::) I felt there was little point in exploring that tree further.
Mike.
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A lot of the Public Trees on Ancestry are good for entertainment value if nothing else. ;D
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I wish Ancestry wouldn't allow another tree to be a "source", they should only be a hint that leads you to other sources.
Sometimes I have a look at the "leaf litter" to see if someone's spotted something I've missed, or has a copy of a BMD certificate.
Most of the time it just leads to badly researched trees though.... I don't know if they're funny or really sad.
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It is annoying when you find trees with info on someone such as this:-
Joseph Keeble
1881 census, Lowestoft, Suffolk, aged 49, widower, chandler.
1890 census New York, New York, USA, aged 60.
1891 census, Lowestoft, Suffolk, aged 59, widower, chandler.
Died Apr, May, June quarter 1899, Lothingland district, Suffolk, Joseph Keeble, England, aged 67.
1900 census New York, New York, USA, aged 70.
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What got up my nose was that the owner thought he had done well by tracing his paternal line!! I classify research as 30 minutes per person if things go well,hours for some so the owner needs to start his research before he was born.
I think I have been spoilt with having so many Scottish ancestors and having access to SP centres and previously going to NRH. I have had a few successful days where I've managed to add several people to my tree relatively quickly and Scottish certificates are so much easier to cross reference to check if you have the correct one.
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Scottish certificates are absolute gold, aren't they? I have also found Swedish church records to be as valuable, with the amount of information they contain.
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It seems I owe an apology to the genealogical world. ;)
I have been researching my family history for approximately 62 years.
Using Warncoot’s classification of research (30 minutes per person) as a base and expanding it thus (30 minutes a person, 3 hours a day, 200 days a year) I should now have around 18,600 people on my tree.
I have to admit failing to attain this basic achievement having only managed to find 4,360 for my main tree.
If I admitted such a failure to discharge my duties to the community in medieval times I would probably have been held in the stocks for a few hours.
As I live in the 21st century I therefore surrender myself to the modern day equivalent being named and shamed on an online forum.
It is obvious I will have to do better in future (funny I remember a similar phrase being used on many of my school reports “could do better”).
Perhaps this thread should have been started in December then I could have had this as a New Year Resolution.
Oh well!
Cheers
Guy
PS Perhaps I should be doing more research instead of whittering my time away on forums. ;)
PPS Apologies for the misspelling the name Warncoort
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Shame Guy, shame. ;D
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A lot of the Public Trees on Ancestry are good for entertainment value if nothing else. ;D
After all, it's on the Internet, it's very clearly labelled, and it's on Ancestry,
... "and what I tell you three times is true" *
regards,
Bob
* From "The Hunting of the Snark", Lewis Caroll
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As I read your post, Bob, I picked the quote as Lewis Carroll, but thought it was from one of the Alice stories. Right author, wrong work. ::)
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Using Warncoot’s classification of research (30 minutes per person) as a base and expanding it thus (30 minutes a person, 3 hours a day, 200 days a year) I should now have around 18,600 people on my tree.
"Warncoot's classification"... the "Newton's first law of motion" of the genealogy world ;D
I have to admit, the majority of people on my tree have not had the luxury of 30 minutes research. My direct ancestor's, however, are being treated to the full works - visits to their graves and photos of the houses they lived in.
We're benefitting from researching in the "age of the internet", which (to me anyway) means we're able to find information quickly while still being accurate... I won't say how many people are on my tree, but I haven't found them through leaf-clicking on Ancestry, they've been researched properly, with the benefit of transcribed indexes and not having to leave the comfort of my own home!
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One daren't even laugh any more. (Samuel BECKETT)
::) ::) ::)
Once when I was a volunteer committee member, taking my turn at being the email checker upperer (Research Officer) I received an email request that said "Great Grandfather died, then Great Grandmother married Great Grandfather in 1808 and they had my Mum in 1942. They died in Austria, and are buried with my Mum's Golden Retriever. What is the name of the cemetery?
I wrote back and said "Could you please provide their names, including Maiden surname. I have CDs for quite a number of cemeteries in NSW, Australia, I have none for Austria."
I got a reply.
It was the Kennel Club pedigree for the Golden Retriever.
I replied again, and asked again, this time specifically asking for the full names for each of the enquirer's Great Grandfathers and Great Grandmothers, and Grandparents.
The reply came back
"If you don't know that, then why bother offering to help".
I forwarded the email to our then president and asked him to decide how to respond. I remember him saying "BMD" Bloo.y Minded Dingbats.
Cheers JM. (I am in NSW, Australia, many generations, first migrant arrived in 1790s, most recent in mid 1800's)
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I suppose we should allow for the fact that many of us probably add names to our tree on a speculative basis, to be confirmed or possibly deleted at a later date. When I do this in RootsMagic I add a note to the individual's entry as a personal reminder, but if I had my tree online it might appear that I had just added unsourced names to bulk up the tree :-\
Mike (in charitable mood) ;D
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I suppose we should allow for the fact that many of us probably add names to our tree on a speculative basis, to be confirmed or possibly deleted at a later date. When I do this in RootsMagic I add a note to the individual's entry as a personal reminder, but if I had my tree online it might appear that I had just added unsourced names to bulk up the tree :-\
Mike (in charitable mood) ;D
I'm also trying to be charitable. I've started looking at the siblings of my direct line. I start by looking at the censuses and enter for example: if John and Mary have a daughter living with them aged 1 in 1881 I'll add a Mary as a daughter born abt 1880. Add a note saying according to 1881 census. Finding Mary's actual birth to the bottom of my to do list. I never get through all my list so Mary could sit on my tree like that for a while before I get to finding her birth. Once I've confirmed her birth finding her death goes on the bottom of my list and so on.
Also being charitable I have been known to research properly then when typing up change birth date to death date or transpose digits eg 1787 instead of 1877 :-[, being ditzy I sometimes only realise what I have done months later when I go back to that section of the family months layer (see above) that I realise what I have done.
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A lot of the Public Trees on Ancestry are good for entertainment value if nothing else. ;D
You're not kidding!! I just came across my direct ancestor on a very creative tree!! Apparently she was married 6 times and had 17 sons and 11 daughters and died at the age of 62, no doubt from exhaustion!! She was born in Cheshire (correct) and criss crossed various counties marrying the next husband and having more children at each point. She is also shown on the fact sources on this particular tree as appearing in 3 censuses for 1841, 1 for 1851, 3 for 1861, 2 for 1871 and 1 each for 1881, 1891 and 1901, she is also linked to 11 other Ancestry trees. :o
I have her as marrying twice (with both marriage certificates) and with 3 children in total. ::)
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I research in a similar way to you, pharmaT. I add people to my tree with very hazy details, then clarify things later, adding "proof" along the way. I'll also add "maybes" to my tree, for example, people with rare names that I think might be related.
But I don't make my tree public, so I'm not leading anyone astray with my suppositions....
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I got in touch with a lady on Ancestry to tell her she had the wrong William Bradley in her tree. The one in my tree died as a child and the censuses of her ancestor as an adult clearly showed it was the other William anyway, father's occupation, place of birth. She got really cross with me and denied these people were on her tree. I cut and pasted the evidence but she still denied it. So I put a direct comment on the tree and Ancestry alerted her. Then she said "who put these people on her tree". I gave up. cb
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I got in touch with a lady on Ancestry to tell her she had the wrong William Bradley in her tree. The one in my tree died as a child and the censuses of her ancestor as an adult clearly showed it was the other William anyway, father's occupation, place of birth. She got really cross with me and denied these people were on her tree. I cut and pasted the evidence but she still denied it. So I put a direct comment on the tree and Ancestry alerted her. Then she said "who put these people on her tree". I gave up. cb
To be fair, it's very, very easy to add another's stuff to your tree. Too easy I think.
Just the other day a photo came up in the hints so I clicked on it to look at it properly and it instantly attached itself to my tree!! I immediately took it off as I wasn't too sure if it was the right person and I like to ask tree owners anyway if I copy something of theirs, though to be honest I think I've only ever asked one lady who had some death certificates of interest.
My tree is now private after somebody took all my personal photos and then others have shared them and they are all over Ancestry. Now you could say that as these "takers" are descendant's then they have as much right to the photos given to me by my mother as I do, but I consider it's "not on" to just take without permission, but maybe I'm too old school............ ::)
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My tree is now private after somebody took all my personal photos and then others have shared them and they are all over Ancestry. Now you could say that as these "takers" are descendant's then they have as much right to the photos given to me by my mother as I do, but I consider it's "not on" to just take without permission, but maybe I'm too old school............ ::)
You're not "too old school".... I think the same. It's OK (in my opinion) to use other people's trees to help you research, i.e. find the original sources for yourself. But copying photos that someone owns or certificates they have paid for themselves is not on... unless you ask their permission first, of course.
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I agree that there should be a warning on Ancestry about checking sources on public trees.
I looked at one that was high on the list and supposedly a near match. I couldn't quite believe what my eyes were showing me as the tree not only had numerous children for one couple, which were actually from different families who happened to have parents with the same common forenames, but there were also children listed at the top who were actually older than their supposed parents. It was so glaringly obvious, but not to the tree owner. :o
There was another close match who had obviously just copied it and added all of this mishmash to their tree.
The top tree in question also had many thousands within it. I think some people go about it like they would social media and by adding 'ancestors', it is akin to adding 'followers' or 'likes'. ::)
I keep my tree private because I feel that I need to verify everything before I publish it as 'fact'.
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So is the tree that Warncoort found the largest anyone has found on Ancestry?
Instead of an Easter egg hunt, let's find the largest tree in the Public Trees. :)
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Can't beat Warncoort's find (yet). The tree I was looking at had almost 33,000, experience level 'Advanced' and offering to help others. :o
I haven't checked the figures on the copier or copied one yet.
Wonder if these people think that the heir hunters may find them if they link enough 'relatives'! ::)
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I have a thoroughly researched tree that is public and it has been copied over three hundred times with all the mistakes in it. This tree has all my research good and bad with over 3500 deceased individuals in it. So there is an awful lot of junk floating around out there for those who want to just add numbers, not ancestors.
Oh yes I have my private tree with no mistakes and it has never been copied and sorry to say it only has around 800 deceased persons on it all ancestors paternal and maternal. It is only accurate to around 1560's. As far as I know you ancestors are the one's who begat the next generation and so on down to you. Not their siblings or cousins of siblings? If you include everyone from all generation we are all related to one another, nice to meet you.
Neil
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I keep my tree private because as far as I am concerned my research is incomplete and always will be.
I include the siblings at each generation because I feel it gives a better picture of my direct ancestors' lives. I think the number of children they had or the number of siblings they have is part of that.
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When I first started out I only used to do the most direct lines with brothers and sisters if possible as then it was a case of trawling through microfilms and so time was much more precious with next to nothing online and visiting the LDS church and the State library in Sydney for many Saturday's trawling through the BMD microfiche.
Now I have Ancestry and do find such a lot of information on others such as cousins of my ancestors and even in laws (all treated with extreme caution!!). What has astonished me is just how many of them intermarry!! It's funny how the same surnames crop up over and over again. I spoke to my mum about this and she rightly reminded me the world was a much smaller place back then and they married (mainly) people they knew of.
I hasten to add it wasn't brothers and sisters marrying :o but 2nd and 3rd cousins and some I don't even see the connection yet but it's surely there, it can be quite a challenge which is all part of the fun!!
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A lot of the Public Trees on Ancestry are good for entertainment value if nothing else. ;D
After all, it's on the Internet, it's very clearly labelled, and it's on Ancestry,
... "and what I tell you three times is true" *
regards,
Bob
* From "The Hunting of the Snark", Lewis Caroll
"I know its true because I made it up myself"
Sue Grafton - author of the Kinsey Millhone Alphabet series of books
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After trying to engage with a couple of tree owners to no avail, I now find a good tip is to check the number of people in a tree before pressing the contact button.
I found one today that has hi-jacked my 3 X Great Grandparents into a completely different family. The tree has nearly 300,000 souls so I won't waste my time.
Has anyone noticed how a great number of these sorts of mega-trees have owners that claim they have a degree and can help people?
Venelow