They say size isn't everything...

[Elizabeth Herts]

I very rarely go on "the other site" these days.

However, there is a thread with the title given above on the tips board.
I feel like adding an apt reply, but I still can't think exactly how I would express all I'd like to say! :D

[Little Nell]

The little what given above?

[Elizabeth Herts]

:o Nell! I should read what I have typed before I push the "submit reply" key!!

It's talking about large family trees - I had a contact on GR the other day with 48,000 people on her tree! She wanted me to open my tree, but I declined! I didn't want to be attached to hers.

[Little Nell]

Elizabeth!

With 48,000 names, one of them is bound to be linked to you!!!

[Nelde]

This site is teaching me quality is better than quantity. How sure am I that the over 1000 names in my FTM are true and accurate and actually related. I find discrepancies in other trees (two John Does born about the same time in the same place - pick one to be the relation) so there are probably errors in mine. So now time to go back and verify, confirm and document what I have. It really impresses me the effort you all make to put flesh over the bones of your ancestors while I was happy to know a name and a birthdate.

[Uncle John]

I do agree. I made the mistake about 5 years ago of importing a GEDCOM from a fairly distant cousin. I've been pruning twigs off it ever since.

[Olde Crone Holden]

I have come to the conclusion that internet trees are interesting things to pass away a boring hour or so, but never take them at all seriously.

If they look reasonably accurate, I might be spurred on to do more research. Even huge trees can have accurate pools of information in them, but the effort required to sort the chaff from the wheat is such that it is usually easier to do your own research than try to gauge how accurate a 150,000 person tree is.

As Eric Morecambe said "The notes are all correct. Just not necessarily in the right order". Same with other people's trees on the internet - the names may be correct but just not neccessarily in the right places.

OC

[Janet]

I have great difficulty in ensuring my few hundred and certainly little more than a thousand are accurate.

I have always prided myself on small, but accurate, but very recently I was astounded when Ann, who died in a small hamlet in Northants as a widow in 1794, was not the widow of the William I had thought, as the Parish Chest revealed that that William had died in 1809! Oh dear, so who is the Widow Ann that I have on my tree at present as the wife of William who died fifteen years after she had died!! Hm, makes you wonder how people with thousands keep the tree accurate. Parish Chests are wonderful places to wreck your tree!!

Janet

[Olde Crone Holden]

Janet

That's the problem, isn't it. Working out what standards of research an unknown tree holder has.

Some are happy to have huge trees, which are really nothing more than sketch trees, with very little detail on them. That's fine, I suppose, as long as you can recognise them for what they are, but that's the problem.

You are not alone, by the way. Twice recently I have discovered a second/third marriage I knew nothing about. She dies aged 71, he dies aged 78, so it never occurred to me to look for another marriage for him, and two more children!

OC

[Uncle John]

the effort required to sort the chaff from the wheat is such that it is usually easier to do your own research than try to gauge how accurate a 150,000 person tree is.

Personally, I prefer to put the wheat in my tree, but each to his own.

I found a fairly small Ancestry tree with some of OH's rellies in it. Some of it was accurate but the rest was rubbish/speculation. Unfortunately it's anonymous so I can't make contact.

[MarionH]

I think it's called collecting telephone directories - if the name is in it - they must be related so we'll add them in (that story came from my cousin in Canada who actually met a couple who had literally done that - they claimed to have tens of thousands in their tree!)
Marion

[Merry Monty Montgomery]

It's not impossible to have a large tree and also to know how reliable the researcher is! lol

My tree has just over 7,000 people included and about 99% is the work of either me (most of it) or OH (but I don't always trust him to get it right, so his work is usually checked first! :()

If I spent the time I spend on this site doing my tree I should think it would be at least twice the size by now!!!

[Durham Lady]

I'm still trying to work out the reasoning one man has for having my parents on his Ancestry tree. The only connection to my family name is that his son in law is my cousins son.

[Jessbowbag]

Some people dont have trees - they have small woodlands, where in actual fact some are saplings grown from others.

[Chris in Sussex]

To be fair....

What about those who add their info for 'legitimate' reasons?

I am sure some members of 'GOONS' and those doing a private 'One Name Study' add their Gedcoms (or part) here, there, and everywhere, as their aim is to try and attract information to add to their databases to share with others.

Their Gedcom could extend to many thousand names.

So I would never discount a 'large/huge' tree unless I had reasons to doubt the truth of the information given relating to my tree....Easily checked against confirmed info I have.

Chris

[Olde Crone Holden]

In fact I have several trees! Only one is a proper tree, the other two are databases which I am happy to share with anyone who wants to look at them.

I make it clear that I (mostly) have no certificates for the databases although I do have other primary material. It is then up to them to decide whether my research is correct or not. If they swallow it wholesale without checking THEIR bit, then that's not my problem.

As I have never had any feedback from the databases (other than a thankyou now and then) I can't tell you what people think of them!

OC

[Grampa Jim]

If I were to make a Gedcom of my Eldest GD's ancestors and all their known descendants I would be exporting almost 12,000 individuals. In my Tree there are about 20,000 individuals so I do have about 8,000 who are not related to me. I justify that because most of them have been given to me by blood relatives who are related to them. The vast majority of the work I can say is accurate, although there are obvious areas where I only have a name and approximate date which need more research. I also have in my files Gedcoms which others have sent to me, or whose research I am also helping with although not related to me.

Also sometimes to get the picture of what was happening in a village sometimes it is necessary to try to build a Tree of all the families which usually are all linked at one generation or another. Especially in remote areas where families stayed for hundreds of years.

So although Small is Beautiful, please don't think that Big is automatically Bad.

[Janet]

Chris

Surely if you were doing a one name study you would keep that separate from your own tree? I sort of do one name studies for Noble and other names in Northants, but I would not put all those on my tree! They would amount to thousands of people I do not know much about. I know that a handful are probably related somewhere along the line but not all of them. I have other places where I put "maybes" and "of interest" but only proven ones get attached to my tree, and even then I have made mistakes!

Interestingly enough, I do have a contact who puts everybody of same name into her tree, but all the info she throws at me just gets me confused, and I can never really get to the bottom of the how, why and where of all the relationships, whereas I just give people some bare facts and everybody seems happy, as I do not throw out too much information at them.

Big trees, little trees, I suppose it is each to their own, but I know I would find it difficult to have a huge tree. I had a cousin who sadly died but whose parents were my Great Uncle and Aunt. The Great Uncle was a blood line relative so I am very interested in his line but my Great Aunt is only Grt Aunt by marriage. My cousin wanted me to do her family history which I did for him as he lived in the States. She actually had a very interesting History, which included her father who was a major in the First W War and then disappeared in Russia in 1919. I would love to do his history for interest, but he is not on my family tree because I feel he is not my relative. Maybe others feel differently and would include all those people as well. It would be interesting to know.

Janet

[Tom Tom]

I have about 8 and a half thousand people in my tree but it is all my own research, or thoroughly checked if I have been told it by someone else.

As well as doing my own family tree I have been doing a village study of Packington in Leicestershire. Whilst looking at my own rellies in Packington they were so muddled up with cousins marrying and that cousin marrying the cousin of their cousin's spouse etc, so it evolved from there.

[Chris in Sussex]

Janet

Sorry if I didn't make my thoughts clear.

I was thinking that those who are doing 'One Name Studies' may post their findings on the internet on any manner of search sites to attract same name researchers.

They may or may not include their own tree in that posted online research.