How to do (or not do !) your tree

[Janet in Yorkshire]

I contacted someone about his Ancestry tree to point out two wrong paths he had taken.
This was his reply: "Thanks for notifying me of my "errors" and I am more than happy for you to notify me of any other mistakes I have made. I wouldn't be surprised if there are many others, given that apart from my maternal/paternal lines. I don't thoroughly check every person's details are 100% correct, or I would only have 300 people in my tree instead of the 3500+ I currently have. Thanks once again and have a nice day."

I think the tree holder is probably married to the daughter of a deceased cousin of mine as I recognised the forename and surname of his wife, and the distinctive details of my cousin, but was confused by the addition of three middle initials for the wife - MMW. However, having read some of the asides on his tree, it seems MMW is "My Miss World."

And no, I'm a meany and so I'm not going to sort out all the errors. Late cousin's father has always been a bit of a mystery man and I was delighted to see that the tree holder had added some parents for him. However, it doesn't make sense. But now I know his approach to doing his tree I am happy to just dismiss what he has put.

Jay

[GallowayLass]

Oh Lord, another name gatherer. You can certainly do without his kind.

[Guest]

Made me laugh his reply, but not surprised.

[kylejustin]

I hate those people. Just shows incompetence when they want an ego trip.

[PhotoFamily]

I'm usually skeptical of trees that have, say, > 10,000 peeps in it.

Then the other day, I saw a tree with > 100,000.

Just like the first set of trees, I'm sure it too is well researched.

[Anne in Carlisle]

I used to wonder about trees with 10,000 or more in but I now find I am rapidly approaching that number. I have been working throughout lockdown several hours a day, mostly 'attaching' my DNA matches to my tree. For me that involves building the family further up from the match and if several generations have 10 children .......! But everyone on my tree is a blood relative or the spouse of a blood relative, I don't add the spouses' families.

I never copy trees from others and won't add anyone without seeing the evidence for myself.

I was surprised to see the numbers growing and a bit embarrassed about it. Should I be?

Anne

[Janet in Yorkshire]

I used to wonder about trees with 10,000 or more in but I now find I am rapidly approaching that number. I have been working throughout lockdown several hours a day, mostly 'attaching' my DNA matches to my tree. For me that involves building the family further up from the match and if several generations have 10 children .......! But everyone on my tree is a blood relative or the spouse of a blood relative, I don't add the spouses' families.

I never copy trees from others and won't add anyone without seeing the evidence for myself.

I was surprised to see the numbers growing and a bit embarrassed about it. Should I be?

Anne

No, Anne, you shouldn't. The numbers do start to stack up once you've gone further back and especially if you are exploring all the children of a blood relative. It can then become a series of family studies, which mine has partly developed into. I tend to work on one surname at a time and don't usually delve into spouses, unless it's a case of siblings marrying siblings, when I record their parents, to show that they are siblings.
Two of my ancestors married twice and had a large family with each wife, so I have had two families to explore as both batch of children share blood with me. At the end of the day, it is "our" tree and we can add to it as we wish; what I don't like, and find disrespectful to those no longer here, is other people inventing rubbish about MY ancestors and putting it up on the net and other idiots copying it without checking. The dead can't speak for themselves.

Jay

[Anne in Carlisle]

I do make a special effort to record infants who have died. Poor little mites have little else so at least they are remembered in my tree.
Anne

[Rusty]

I do make a special effort to record infants who have died. Poor little mites have little else so at least they are remembered in my tree.
Anne

Yes, I do the same, now that the GRO have come on board so to speak, although their site is laborious I try to fill in any large gaps with these little ones so that they are now remembered in my tree, I suspect that most will have an unknown grave so at least they are now not forgotten.

I think that my grammar might have got a bit lost in that last sentence, but hopefully you'll know what I mean.

[Janet in Yorkshire]

I do make a special effort to record infants who have died. Poor little mites have little else so at least they are remembered in my tree.
Anne

Me too and for the same reason.

Jay

[GallowayLass]

I used to wonder about trees with 10,000 or more in but I now find I am rapidly approaching that number. I have been working throughout lockdown several hours a day, mostly 'attaching' my DNA matches to my tree. For me that involves building the family further up from the match and if several generations have 10 children .......! But everyone on my tree is a blood relative or the spouse of a blood relative, I don't add the spouses' families.

I never copy trees from others and won't add anyone without seeing the evidence for myself.

I was surprised to see the numbers growing and a bit embarrassed about it. Should I be?

Anne

No you certainly shouldn’t. It’s obvious pretty quickly whether trees are well sourced or not. If you’ll pardon the expression, our hobby is one where size doesn’t matter. It’s quality that counts.
It’s a while since I bothered checking how many individuals are in my tree.

[Darksecretz]

yep I have had several like that and some even adding the wrong children to the wrong father, I messaged the 'person' concerned and have had zero response, yet she has altered my grandma to the right parents but left her sister with the wrong.. and in the index it is plain to see.. just ruddy look will you!!! jeez louise!
makes my blood boil!

When I have a family in 1911 I always make note of the children died, and then I'll find the births/deaths and add them accordingly. I just like to dot every i and cross every t.

when I have looked at other trees I do the legwork and check it all out before adding it to my master tree [which has about 5,000 ish peeps in it]

[Anne in Carlisle]

When I look at some small trees attached to DNA results its clear that some people really struggle to understand how to even connect children to parents, grandparents etc. I have seen quite a few with the same person as wife, grandmother and second wife! I think they just give up at that point and leave it.
Anne

[GallowayLass]

I get equally frustrated by trees with all or most of the correct children attached to either one or the other of the parents which produces loads of erroneous half siblings. The only child correctly attached to both parents in each tree tends to be the one that is the tree owner’s direct ancestor.

[PhotoFamily]

I used to wonder about trees with 10,000 or more in but I now find I am rapidly approaching that number.

I'm not saying that the people in the tree can't be well researched, but chances increase as the number grows higher and higher. More than 100,000 people really threw me.


What about contacting people who have held a long-standing beliefs about family connections? My father's Aunt Tillie was his grandmother's sister, never had children of her own, but married a man with two daughters who were grown or almost grown at the time of the marriage. A descendant of one of the two daughters stopped communicating with me when I brought up that as the relationship. I didn't bring it up in the first messages, tried to get established as a real connection and researcher. Sigh. My father knew both his aunt and her husband, and my grandfather signed both of their DCs as the informant.

I've got a different set of beliefs on another line, but before any living memory. Pretty sure the records support my tree's construction.

[kylejustin]

These are the reasons i won't make my tree public. I've researched thoroughly since i was 14, bought bmd's, parish records, archival records and hired researchers in countries all over the world. Found photos and paintings, used experts for dating them. Some of these things no one else has. Have gone to the source many times where everyone else relies on trees, correcting errors as simple as names and dates but also conflated siblings and extra children.

yet still get people insisting we are related and asking for access to my tree without any relationship. Even telling them we are no relation they still want access. All to add the info without checking relevancy.

i see photos added to people erroneously all the time. Usually just same name as only reason. Most of the time photos are added to people who died before photography!

[keldon]

At least they had the courtesy to reply. I've given up now gently pointing out errors. None have even bothered to reply, but at least a couple changed their tree as a result of my email even though they did not say thank you.

[GallowayLass]

I had to gently enquire of three people why they had saved a photo of the gravestone my paternal grandparents and their eldest child to their trees. The person was the same man in two of the trees and in the third tree it was a different man again. Same name as my grandfather but in the first two the man was born in Ireland and the odd one out had an Englishman but the wrong county of birth and even the wrong forename for his wife.
My Grandad was Shropshire born. The two with the Irishman attached to the photo unlinked it. One wrote back and apologised for the error, the other didn’t. The third tree owner still has the photo linked. No further communication so no idea if they are aware of my contract or not.
In hubby’s tree, a sister of one of his great Grannys supposedly emigrated to Australia and died there. Nooo, she did not. She was born, married and died in Glasgow. I have pointed out the error in this person’s tree and offered to share documents. No response, nothing has changed and now numerous other people have copied the mistakes. I tried again about six months later and I even told them who the parents of the woman in their tree actually were as in the interim, I had got them from her marriage and birth certs on SP while I was in Edinburgh. Sooo annoying.

[Janet in Yorkshire]

It probably depends on why people are doing their family tree. For some people it's herd instinct and they're doing it because so many other people are - do it quick, get it on Ancestry for all the world to see and then move on to the next craze. My purpose, however, is to create memories of those who have gone before. My love of the past started when I was about three and accompanied my grandmother on her afternoon visits to other ladies of her age, to whom she sold National Savings stamps and tickets for the annual sale of work of goods made by the blind. I knew my place! - I spoke only when spoken to, but did lots of listening when they talked about their earlier years and dished the gossip on their contemporaries. It engendered a love of people and their stories, which has stayed with me all my life.

Jay

[GallowayLass]

Memories! I sold National Savings stamps after school in my upper school years and also did the annual Princess Margaret Rose collection. I dare say my mother would have had me trailing the countryside doing the Lifeboat collection too but the old lady who did that was long lived and had no intention of giving it up. Mother met her match there LOL