Massive Tree

[warncoort]

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

[3sillydogs]

How do you keep track of that

Who added all those other folk

[pinefamily]

How do you keep track of that

Who added all those other folk

The green leaf fairies..... 

[CarolA3]

............. or as someone (Erato I think) called it recently - 'Leaf Litter'

Carol

[pharmaT]

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.

[warncoort]

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.

[stevew101]

Methinks a few leaves may fall on this one 

Lets hope it contains no rot.

[dowdstree]

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

[mike175]

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.