Doing some research on one of my colonial families using Ancestry, of course I had to look at the tips in the 18 online family trees. BUT I will say I usually look at those trees LAST after I've looked at the other tips. (And I summarily delete or ignore the references to the Family Data File, the Millennium File, SAR applications and that ilk.) But back to business.......
One of the trees Ancestry wanted me to compare with mine showed the compiler had 23 sources!! "Wow, that's one I want to check out," thinks me. Boy was a disappointed but not fooled.
Those 23 "sources" we're all no darn good for they came from those files mentioned above.....those compilations done by other well-meaning-but-who-knows-how-much-they-KNOW folks. (Now don't get your knickers in a knot, yes, I know they're all good for clues but are NOT sources, in my opinion.)
Only one of those 23 listings was likely: Massachusetts Town Death Records.....but when I clicked on that the info that came up had nothing to do with that family!
Good grief, says Charlie Brown, and me too.
So what''s a genealogist to do? How are we to use these Ancestry trees (or any other online trees)? How are we to consider them sources???
How do YOU use the Ancestry (or other online) trees???
Oh, and that fellow had attached the family coat of arms for this daughter who was born in 1598 in England. Really??
1 comment:
I try to be judicious in taking family tree information these days. I recently came across a tree that had the man married twice. Once to his mother. Huh? If the dates had been looked at they would have seen it was an error. So about 7 out of 8 family trees had the same exact wrong data. HOWEVER, the good thing is that one of them did not and by scrolling through them and only getting information from the one tree, I scored some valuable data!! So, like they say "drive defensively?" Traveling through data on Ancestry is kind of the same thing.
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