PRO TOOLS Tree Checker: Things you need to know.

[@angelamullis7637]

Thank you. I was not familiar with those other tree checkers. I have a massive tree, and "Thrulines" is a pain and has caused numerous issues and duplications. I have 28,000 people, with 1485 in duplicates, according to Ancestry, and 3000 people that need sources. The sources for those people are most likely in-law cousins not blood related, where I don't hold the time value for in creating my tree. I have really loved the process of this research and discovery.

[@Beaumont-Genealogy]

Thanks for the comment - I would certainly recommend Family Tree Analyzer (free) to help you with checking your tree. Having no sources is not a big deal in my opinion if the people are not in your direct lines of research. Many of the duplications in Ancestry might be false and due to similar names or birth dates.

[@RobertBrownATX]

Great video. Regarding duplicates, Ancestry created most of them and now they want to charge more to take them out. That’s aggravating at best! You often must add a duplicate to get ThruLines to work. ThruLines shows the person is not in your tree when they really are. So, you add the person again to get down another level on your ThruLine and then go to merge the people. If you forget, then your duplication persists until you find it through some means. You sometimes you get dups when you merge in another users suggested tree content. Ancestry should be identifying such dups when they are entered. Right then and there. No wanting to charge you later to get them out.

[@Beaumont-Genealogy]

Thanks. The new maps and fan functionality were pretty interesting, but the duplicate and error checking are very poor (and very expensive - you could buy most personal computer genealogy software for less)

[@BobR-b4o]

I've spent the last several days merging duplicated people on my chart that were obvious errors which I became aware of. However, I've also found quite a few that don't appear to be errors at all but simply have a lot in common with the supposed duplicate which must have been enough to generate the error. One thing that concerns me is that merging individuals could create some serious issues for your tree if you do it wrong although I feel like I've cleaned up a lot of mistakes. I've started checking my tree before I add any new individuals to it, that's how this happens in the first place.

[@Beaumont-Genealogy]

Your experience is pretty common. Until about 100 years ago it was common to reuse names if an infant had died and families reused names of grandparents and parents so you could have a number of people with the same name. I treat Ancestry's duplications as hints more than anything else. In my tree less than 20% were actual duplicates.

[@altopower]

Thank you for this - very helpful. I use FTM instead of RootsMagic, but it also has analytics that I use regularly already.

[@Beaumont-Genealogy]

You're welcome - I am waiting for the new version of FTM to come out and then I think I will add that as a comparison.

[@shammylevva]

Very interesting. What was the error that Ancestry found that Family Tree Analyzer didn’t? If I know what the error it found was I can add that logic to the new version 10 for Family Tree Analyzer. Btw it’s a deliberate design decision not to edit someone’s tree in FTAnalyzer. That is because by making the user the sole arbiter of whether something should be edited or not they retain complete control over how the data appears in their tree and never need to worry about FTAnalyzer changing something they want to keep.

[@Beaumont-Genealogy]

Thanks - the lone error that Ancestry picked up was a son born to a woman aged 13. I don’t think FTA needs to be changed for that, as FTA works before 13. Anyway, I would say my analysis was just a high pass. More to show that PRO TOOLS Tree Checker was very basic at the moment, and FTA (or RM) is still a far better option. I plan to do a more detailed error analysis when the new version of Family Tree Maker is released later this year between Ancestry, FTA, FTM, and RM. I was also planning to do a more detailed overview of FTA too - it is such a great (free) tool that so few people use or even know about.