Ancestry family trees full of lazy errors

[LeedsHipPriest69]

Having taken a significant time away from tracing my family tree (young family etc), I've found that covid, resulting in me working from home and therefore giving me back two extra hours a day through not having to commute to work, has given me extra time to get back into family history.

My gripe however, is those sites, Find My Past and Ancestry etc, that make serious money out of us through subscriptions, having their sites full of unsubstantiated nonsense.

As we go back into the 17th and 18th centuries, research obviously becomes more and more difficult, the big plus therefore, when we hit brick walls, should be the fact there are so many hints to other family trees, which should help when searches throw up no results for any number of reasons, spelling errors, poor transcriptions etc

Ancestry does at least offer the chance for us to make suggested amendments to transcription errors, but what about the number of unsupported entries in family trees ?

Personally, I use the "verified" tag when I am 95-100% sure of any cited ancestor, but far far too many trees just have no supporting sources of evidence. I've suggested to Ancestry on a couple of occasions they add a facility to filter such entries but to no avail.

Anyhow, apologies for the long moan, just wanted to get it off my chest, and if anyone knows of a way of filtering out such entries I'd be grateful

Cheers

[BumbleB]

Not sure why you are blaming Ancestry, FindMyPast or any other site offering such facilities - they are NOT responsible for whatever nonsense some people wish to upload or broadcast.

MOTTO - do your own research.     

[CaroleW]

I agree with BumbleB

It’s the owners of the trees who are to blame for posting poorly researched FH.   It is not the job of the pay sites to check the accuracy of it

When I encounter errors on a tree - I message the owner (politely).  You will find numerous posts like yours on Rootschat - all with the same replies - Do your own research

[Guy Etchells]

I would suggest that most researchers use either Ancestry or Findmypast etc. for the images of the records they hold rather than the user trees on the sites. The companies allow users to upload their trees to the websites as a service to the users giving them a place to host and share their trees.
If other users are silly enough to copy such trees without vigorous checking then such users deserve all they get in my opinion.
Cheers
Guy

[Ray T]

I’ve often thought it would be useful to be able to post public comments upon peoples obvious mistakes.

[Tickettyboo]

if anyone knows of a way of filtering out such entries I'd be grateful

Cheers

When the 'hints' are to family trees you have the option to review and discard them or just ignore them completely?
It only takes a second.

Family trees are last on my list for looking at when researching, I prefer to use the records and come to my own conclusions and then look to see what others say.

Sadly some trees are inaccurate and if I disagree but it otherwise looks like a well researched tree, I sometimes, but not always, send a message and say what evidence I have found that has led me to a different conclusion and ask if the tree owner is willing to tell me what they have that led them to 'their' conclusion.
I wouldn't dream of saying I am right and they are wrong , we are all capable of taking a wrong turn from time to time.

The outcome varies, from no reply, or 'I got it from an ancestry tree' and now and then it results in a really productive, for both sides, exchange of information - to be reviewed and checked out by the other party to either stick to their original theory or, in view of the new info, change their minds.

Boo

[Jebber]

I’ve often thought it would be useful to be able to post public comments upon peoples obvious mistakes.

You can post public comments on other people's trees, the trouble is that most  people don't note the blue indicator against a name that someone has left a comment. When I do look at other trees, I always look to see if a comment has been left by anyone, but very few are made. Occasionally a tree owner has left a response to my comment, but that is also very rare.

[Hevs]

I have to admit it used to driver me nuts seeing all these trees with my ancestors on, with incorrect dates, people having kids at 99 years old, as was the case of my GGG grandmother on one tree.  I did message a few people to politely tell them that the information they had for my 5x G Grandfather was incorrect as there is no father on his birth certificate, but they just ignored me - the lineage they selected took them back to someone who apparently fought alongside William Wallace, and its totally incorrect.

I no longer stress myself about it, I just laugh and move on.  I have made some very good connections with 2nd and 3rd cousins on my Anderson side, and we have helped each other with information sharing which has been great.  Always a bonus to connect with family members.  but I never take anything on Ancestry as fact, I always do my own research and back up and documents.  Some people just don't care, but that's a them problem.

[Erato]

Even the unsourced trees are worth looking at.  More than once I've found useful tips in them.  Just because someone doesn't note the source of their information doesn't mean that there was no source.