An Ancestry/FTM question - how do they know?

[tj_]

Hello,

Not sure I know how to compose this question and keep your attention!

Anyway, I use FTM and it is 'linked' to my online Ancestry tree. When I follow the 'hints' for a particular individual, Ancestry/FTM always suggests a only one spouse for a possible 1896 marriage.

However, if one looks this marriage up on FreeBMD (Sep 1896 Hartley W. 2c 367) then there are two females and two males. So how does Ancestry makes it's decision?

Following up the possibilities, I searched for my 2nd cousin 3x removed (using both potential surnames) in the 1901 census. But from my logic, her possible husband is not the one that Ancestry suggests!

So, does anyone know how Ancestry makes its hints/assumptions?

Tim

[clayton bradley]

I can tell you about one example. A marriage came up on a shaking leaf for someone in my tree, but I had just been looking at a census for that person. She had died and her widower was living with her family. All this was quite easy to check on Cheshire BMD but someone in another tree had decided she married another person and died 30 years later.  Ancestry kept bringing up those censuses and trying to link them to my tree. So I think if one person has decided something, even if that is wrong, the virus spreads. claytonbradley

[Hampshire Lass]

Yes, I absolutely agree with clayton bradley.

I think the hints and links come about by the number of trees who have accepted the records as the "correct"ones and so you therefore cannot just rely on Ancestry alone but need to find some way of verifying the records and using a process of elimination.


There are many mistakes both on the online public trees and on the hints and the matched records.

It's part of the fun to untangle it all though, so just keep checking on all the other online sources or any other records which are available to you.

Best wishes HL

[tj_]

Thanks for replies.

I was thinking along those lines but hoping to be wrong. Just have to remember not to be too tempted by those blasted leaves!

Tim