Ancestry tree rubbish

[coombs]

There are many reasons why people do not want their Ancestry trees to be public, and I think a big one is others just stealing family photos and other snippets of their grandparents or great grandparents, and them being copied by a descendent of a sibling of one of those g-grandparents for example, or being copied by a distant relation to one of them by marriage. Also other researchers can nab dates and other facts from Anc trees and pass off the work as their own. I think a private tree owner likes to be asked if they would like to share any further info first, before people just nick their data like the can with a public tree. I am more laid back and keep my tree public but we are all different.

Hints can occasionally be valuable but not often, seeing as our ancestors moved around more than we give them credit for, do not blatantly accept a likely marriage but do not just discard it, especially if the father was in the army or other job that required him to move around, like a carman, coachman, mariner etc. Some may have found some vital evidence that it is the correct marriage or baptism but just not mentione dit on their trees. Always check for yourself though.

[Edward Scott]

The tree that the recent snip came from does not have sources but oddly some of the facts are correct. One of them provoked a thought and having gone off on a tangent that I may not have thought of I found some 'missing' 5 & 6 x ggparents on my wife's side & I now have evidence & sources. Maybe they do have the sources and just don't add them.

However the fact that there were 3 obvious errors on one individual makes me wonder.

[brigidmac]

I sometimes use Scotland's people for me research but don't know how to transfer and show source on an entry so it probably looks unresearched and I have copied records from others which I have seen but these are people who I'm in contact with and we have agreed to share information

I also have a problem with computers and when have option of attaching to a person on my tree it sometimes goes to a cousin or parent with same name which.makes tree impossible .I have to remember to double check and cancel

I am very grateful if anyone points out errors

[Johnf04]

I see my (public) Ancestry tree as a kind of net, fishing for possible connections. A surprising number of the people on the tree have only me, or at best one or two others researching them. I have attached sources and photographs, and I have made some useful contacts, through the tree.

[Forfarian]

I see my (public) Ancestry tree as a kind of net, fishing for possible connections.

I also have a 'fishing' tree online at FamilySearch, which includes basic data only for my direct ancestors.

I used to have it on MyHeritage, but was continually being swamped by 'hot matches' with completely different parents, or born several thousand miles away. Then they gradually and progressively moved so much of their site behind a paywall that it became impossible to contact or be contacted by other people. I object to being blackmailed into paying to view information donated free of charge by other people, so I cancelled it altogether.

[Johnf04]

I also have a 'fishing' tree online at FamilySearch, which includes basic data only for my direct ancestors.

My concern with Family Search, is the total lack of control over the tree - at least on Ancestry I can control those with editing permission, currently only me.

[pharmaT]

I sometimes use Scotland's people for me research but don't know how to transfer and show source on an entry so it probably looks unresearched and I have copied records from others which I have seen but these are people who I'm in contact with and we have agreed to share information

I also have a problem with computers and when have option of attaching to a person on my tree it sometimes goes to a cousin or parent with same name which.makes tree impossible .I have to remember to double check and cancel

I am very grateful if anyone points out errors

I free type the info from the SP Certificates, I guess that makes it look like I've made it up but I haven't.  The majority of people in my tree are Scottish so I have a lot of data from SP.  My 2nd cousin downloads the images  and uploads them.  The reason I haven't done this is that a lot of my SP info comes from days spent at an SP centre so it's cheaper for me to write it out in notes rather than download the images.  I suppose I'll be told that I'm too stingy to be allowed to do my tree if I do it this way but it's my tree and my hobby.

[Forfarian]

I free type the info from the SP Certificates, I guess that makes it look like I've made it up but I haven't.  The majority of people in my tree are Scottish so I have a lot of data from SP. 

I also type the details, including the reference (District/year/RD/No - so any future researcher can easily follow it up) directly into my notes.

When I started out with this 36 years ago, this was the only way to get information. There were no digital images or computerised indexes, so you just had to find the certificate or census and copy out the details.

You still have to transcribe information from births less than 100 years ago, marriages less than 75 years ago and deaths less than 50 years ago, so it is not possible to get either digital images or print-outs of all certificates and censuses anyway, so I didn't see the point in collecting them. (Couldn't have stored tens of thousands of sheets of paper anyway!)

And if I did decide to go back to SP and download images of all the post-1855 certificates available for people in my tree (7521 births, 5163 deaths, 2484 marriages) that I have already seen it would cost me well over £22,000. And that is only for Scotland, and doesn't include pre-1855 baptisms and banns, or any of the census.

I don't think that reluctance to shell out that sort of money for information I already have to hand is 'stingy'. I'd rather say 'prudent' or 'thrifty'

It didn't cost me anything like that, of course, because not only did I collect much of it in New Register House/Scotland's People Centre, but in the good old days it used to be possible to make an appointment with a Registrar, and be let loose in their strong room where all the books were stored, and just leaf through the book and make notes (in pencil, of course). That is no longer allowed. You have to be supervised at £20 per hour now, so it's much cheaper to use an SP centre at £15 per day.   

[pharmaT]

I free type the info from the SP Certificates, I guess that makes it look like I've made it up but I haven't.  The majority of people in my tree are Scottish so I have a lot of data from SP. 

I also type the details, including the reference (District/year/RD/No - so any future researcher can easily follow it up) directly into my notes.

When I started out with this 36 years ago, this was the only way to get information. There were no digital images or computerised indexes, so you just had to find the certificate or census and copy out the details.

You still have to transcribe information from births less than 100 years ago, marriages less than 75 years ago and deaths less than 50 years ago, so it is not possible to get either digital images or print-outs of all certificates and censuses anyway, so I didn't see the point in collecting them. (Couldn't have stored tens of thousands of sheets of paper anyway!)

And if I did decide to go back to SP and download images of all the post-1855 certificates available for people in my tree (7521 births, 5163 deaths, 2484 marriages) that I have already seen it would cost me well over £22,000. And that is only for Scotland, and doesn't include pre-1855 baptisms and banns, or any of the census.

I don't think that reluctance to shell out that sort of money for information I already have to hand is 'stingy'. I'd rather say 'prudent' or 'thrifty'

It didn't cost me anything like that, of course, because not only did I collect much of it in New Register House/Scotland's People Centre, but in the good old days it used to be possible to make an appointment with a Registrar, and be let loose in their strong room where all the books were stored, and just leaf through the book and make notes (in pencil, of course). That is no longer allowed. You have to be supervised at £20 per hour now, so it's much cheaper to use an SP centre at £15 per day.

Yes £15 a day is a good deal.  I always get more than £15 worth of info if comparing to using the SP website.  Especially the day I was looking for the correct John Smith and had to look through several certificates to find the right one.  I have only been researching for 20 years, I missed being able to look at the actual books but remember the microfiche and all the drawers round the dome.  I had forgotten that they used to insist on pencils.  I too would have to print/buy 1000s of certificates for my tree.