This popular Ancestry feature could RUIN your family tree

There's a popular feature on Ancestry .com that can really help you discover more of your family tree... or completely mess it up. Learn what this feature is and how to use it to find more of your ancestors.
➡️ Check out what to do when your ancestor changed names: • When Ancestors Changed...
Timestamps:
0:00 - A quick look at Ancestry's record page
1:11 - Where Ancestry's Suggested Records come from
2:32 - Why Suggested Records can be a problem
3:08 - How to tell if the Suggested Records are accurate or not
#genealogy #familyhistory #ancestry
✅ Pick up a free copy of Amy's guide "5 Online Search Strategies Every Genealogist Should Know: www.amyjohnsoncrow.com/search...
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[@AmyJohnsonCrow]

It can be confusing when ancestors change names! Here's how you can keep them all straight: kzbin.info/www/bejne/b4G0nn6nl6utkNE

[@muzkat101]

Just curious how well Ancestry is for looking up old Iowa adoption records, if at all? Please let me know if you have any experience with that.

[@Sanity_Faire]

I accepted every hint because I couldn’t think of a better idea 😄 I’m so happy with my Scottish royalty, I don’t want a do-over 😅

[@AmyJohnsonCrow]

Depends on the time period. Recent court records likely aren’t digitized. For older court records (pre-1950s), I’d recommend checking out FamilySearch’s catalog. If they’re digitized, they likely aren’t indexed, so you’ll have to wade through the images. Again, depending on the time period, you might be better off contacting the court directly.

[@KenFullman]

Another thing to watch out for is accepting other peoples research. My wife has researched our family trees pretty extensively. Many's the time that she's been contacted by owners of trees that have some overlap, only to discover, they've made some huge errors. One example being my Greatx3 grandfather. He's become something of a dead end for us but there's another guy, born the same year with the same name yet, we know it's not him. Likewise this doppleganger also had a wife and kids (but we know these are not my relatives. Yet other people have included all this information as fact which has made a total dogs dinner of their trees.

[@danquaylesitsspeltpotatoe8307]

@@AmyJohnsonCrow Chasing up ancestry is just a random role of the die you have no idea if your guesses are correct or if the info given is true!

[@melanierice4416]

Than you for encouraging researchers to evaluate evidence before adding it to their trees! Even Ancestry hints may not apply to the ancestor referenced.

[@ElCid48]

I will not do it. my eldest sister did it. and she tried to talk the rest of us to do it but I will not or my brothers. the FBI already has my finger prints since I was a Vista worker in the 1970's and I had a file with them since I was like 10 because of one of my brother who did something for the Air Force during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I always has a hard time dealing with my relative who were alive in my life time, why would I want to know some people who live generations ago. I do tell people with a smile that I do not need to pay because some ancient relative of these was a slave since I do have a distant grandfather who fought in the Civil War in the NY division at Harper's Ferry and spent time as a POV before he was released and told to find his own way home to Sand Lake NY. so he paid it for me

[@Dancestar1981]

We always multicheck everything

[@reginaparham6388]

I've found at times even when someone attaches references on individuals they obviously did not inspect those source records for they have people who are incorrect or not possibly the right person.

[@TheWirdbird]

Actually looking at the census is a good way to find out if there were other family members living next door or a few houses down.

[@debbieroot4618]

Too bad there isn't a "not my guy" button.

[@magicmic384]

I was thinkin the same thing

[@BillTxn]

This is an important lesson. Occasionally, new hints will appear on profiles I have worked in the past, so before I check out the hint, I take a couple of minutes to review the facts I have about the individual just to refresh my memory. That way, I can be more certain of the relevance of the new hint.

[@AmyJohnsonCrow]

Reviewing what you already have is *such* an important step!

[@rover790]

This is an excellent suggestion. Thanks

[@grantfahlman1815]

I completely agree on this. It's especially important if... you have a large tree... with a large number of similar or duplicate names...and your memory isn't quite as good as what it was previously (in your younger years)!

[@esm1817]

Oh, yes, when I skip this step to review hints and then come back later, I'm often horrified at what I've done.

[@Nancy-fo7lc]

I have an ancestor whose name is the same as mine as is his wife and several of the children. However, the difference in the two records was the Occupation. They did not match and I knew one of them was not my ancestor. I saw several trees that had added both records to their tree and therefore had some wrong info.

[@pamelawing5747]

My SIL has done the genealogy for our family and one thing she DID say was, be careful of going too far down a wrong path. She learned that when she first started and has gotten much better at knowing what is real. It's been really interesting. She's gotten great info as census' become available. It's been interesting, very enlightening, some skeletons have emerged. LOVE those. One thing that CAN create a problem is birth records. My mom was born at home so no birth certificate but there WAS a record in the family Bible that we found. Anyway, it's a ton of fun.

[@jamesturner7102]

I find this to be so true! I actually started our family research in 1982. Some people are quick to pass on information which is inaccurate too. Just because something is online doesn’t make it true. On the other hand I have been helped by someone who has already done good research. Thank you for making this observation about Ancestry.

[@highpath4776]

Indeed according to one search I did NOBODY with the name I was looking for existed on one census. I found two families with misspellings on original documents , which was fair enough, but others were transcribed wrongly

[@KimberlyGreen]

_Loved_ your lamp / snow shoe analogy. This same "due diligence" is why I _never_ connect another user's tree as a "source". It could contain wrong information, either at the attachment time, or go wonky later on.

[@AmyJohnsonCrow]

Thanks :-) (I had *way* too much fun with that analogy!) You're spot on with using other people's trees. Examine them for clues, but don't attach from the tree! Just one wrong generation connection, and you've made a real mess of your own tree.

[@ShadowMoonFarms]

You are so right. I never use the info from another user's tree and Ancestry just keeps giving those hints over and over. I think if someone makes a change to a profile, then it generates a hint out to everyone with that person in their tree. It is so time wasting!

[@fabianmckenna8197]

My tree is Scottish ancestors so every hint I find on Ancestry, immediately gets checked on Scotlandspeople.gov which more often than not proves the person never existed except on someone's imaginary tree.......

[@rikwen96]

This is good information for people researching their family tree. Just like today's families, people ended up with the same name because the name was popular at the time or belonged to a noted hero/celebrity/military figure. Case for my family, I can't tell you how many George Washington (last name) my tree has who may have family members with the same name or just another person with the same name. The one thing Ancestry has changed that I do not like is the easy ability to review the census reports. Yes, I can still get in there with extra steps. But I have learned over time that if I check on several pages on either side of my ancestor, I may very well find another ancestor living in the same area. I have also found married daughters this way. It takes a lot of digging some times to find ancestors when they can be in plain sight.

[@AmyJohnsonCrow]

It's like here in the Midwest, there are a ton of ancestors named "William Henry Harrison (blank)." 😂 You're so right about how valuable it can be to explore the households around your ancestors. As I like to say, "Neighbors, also known as 'potential relatives.'" 😊

[@JT1358]

Looking at the actual image is SO important - have come across numerous instances where the information has transcribed incorrectly.

[@Lesloi6227]

This was me in my early days researching my trees. In fact my original tree was so wrong I had to start again. Terrific videos. Very helpful - happy to have found your site.

[@cspiritl]

Is there a way to start over in the app?

[@anneahlert2997]

I like the analogy of the online purchases (lamp and snowshoes). That's a good way to explain the gullibility of algorithms. Once more, same-name confusion and the errors in "other people's trees" can find a way to creep into our own. Verify, verify, VERIFY!

[@Emy53]

I totally "review" ALL documents, no matter what they are. There are so many people with same names. I check the dates of birth and other family members attached to any document. It gets confusing because many families shared their name generation after generation. I have two sets of great and great grandfather's with same exact name...

[@Kinsfire]

Good tip on checking out the actual image. I used those once to verify that an ancestor with a VERY common name was, in fact, my ancestor. Two different ones. One census image from when she was a child, living with a family where the woman had a somewhat unusual name. A later census that I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt was my ancestor, where that exact same woman was living with my ancestor's family. Can't trace that ancestor back further, unfortunately, because she was full-blood Native American, and her tribe never got any sort of information to the tribe they joined up with. (Tutelo joining the Cayuga, in NY state.)

[@AmyJohnsonCrow]

Looking at the image is *so* important!

[@mhall8428]

Not only looking at the image but a page or two on either side of the image, Neighbors can be important!!

[@91splamy]

Also, sometimes they forget to check the next page when indexing and leave out a few of the children in a family.

[@annes7926]

I get really frustrated when I try to look for my great great grandmother. I have her name, marriage certificate, and death certificate. She also shows up in census records and in the proper cemetery records. All verified with family records from my grandmother. However, people on Ancestry have attached her to records for some other woman who died in a completely different state. In doing so, they have changed her maiden name to her married name, or given her a completely different spouse. I know what I am looking for, but Ancestry relies on their trees to make suggestions. (Yes, sometimes I want to scream!)

[@carokat1111]

I've taken to messaging people with a very pleasant and carefully worded message when this kind of thing happens and I make sure I have all of the information to prove that there is an error. It takes time, but over a couple of years lots of people have changed their trees and it has really helped. The other thing I have done, is write up a story for the Hints explaining how confusion between two people has occurred and clarifying the narrative. Other people will receive the Hint for the 'incorrect' person and are more likely to read a Hint than a Message. That's also been a successful tactic for me.

[@annes7926]

@@carokat1111 I tried, but they seem to multiply. I gave up trying to correct everyone. I even tried to reach out to Ancestry, but that failed, too. My ancestor was born, married, and died in Tennessee. These other people have her dying in Texas! Some even have her correct death date. She died in the same house that my grandmother was born in, so I know I have the right person and details. I am extra careful with using data from other people’s trees - unless it exactly lines up and verifies what I know is true. I may try your hint idea - perhaps mentioning the address of death and all.

[@carokat1111]

@@annes7926 How frustrating. Yes, I have a similar personal, confirmed oral history story which is why I knew my information for my great-great-grandmother was correct. In the end everything was able to be verified with documents as well. I think the Hint approach is helpful. A cousin of mine on an unrelated ancestor has just verified that a photo we have all been using for years has been attributed to the wrong person. The photograph is everywhere! I've updated my tree, but suggested he write something up explaining how the photograph is the son of the person we thought and how that information was identified. We can only hope in time that people will read it and change their records accordingly.

[@lynnecruz7457]

I've tried to correct people as well but they don't seem to care.

[@annes7926]

@@lynnecruz7457 that’s been my experience, too. To compound things further, I can’t find my ancestor’s parents because of this systemic misdirection.

[@garypaulflynn9596]

On Ancestry, I have encountered women who supposedly gave birth to children after they had been dead for years or were way too old (60+). This has usually happened due to following a leaf into someone else's tree.

[@pgl7950]

Thank you for this video. I’ve had trouble over the years with many people inserting incorrect information in publicly shared family trees and this leads to the recurring spread of more of the same. I’ve had to make my tree private so that the hard work I’ve put in isn’t misappropriated, only to find that some distant relative I granted access to has a publicly shared tree of their own that someone else has pillaged and picked piecemeal information.

[@MsSherrydarling]

I've only started to open those sidebar links. I tend to save them to my shoebox on Ancestry until l can verify the information. I only add documents to my actual ancestor if l am certain of them. I learned that the hard way🙄

[@kevinfarris9871]

I'm guilty...sorry...

[@cory1newton]

You should really do the opposite. If you have better research and sourcing, wouldn’t it make sense to have a public tree? Your well researched and sourced tree could counteract all the flapdoodle out there. I started commenting on my sources to explain them more. I also comment on the bad sources, explaining to people why it should be avoided. Walling off the good stuff certainly doesn’t help newer researchers. They just keep rehashing crap (and sometimes adding to it in baffling ways, lol)

[@kevertbookal-xm5zh]

​ 1:50 @@kevinfarris98711:18

[@johnwoods7650]

It is not just Ancestry suggestions you can be misled by. It really applies to trusting the trees uploaded in MyHeritage, FindMyPast, FamilyTreeDNA, GEDmatch, Geneanet, etc. The sources offered in FamilySearch can also be misleading too, especially if the surname of your ancestor is a common one.

[@mcraw4d]

I have a family members 3 generations back that lived in the same rural town/area as a another family that had multiple siblings and same last name. Unortunately both families had three sons that shared the same first names and birthdays within several years of each other. So many people imported the wrong family members into their trees that anyone trying to do research either of these families is in for a huge effort to make sure your going down the right family line vs a very confusing rabbit hole.

[@richardesposito6622]

Thanks so much for your help with this! I am quite new at the fam. tree program and I did make a bit of a "train wreck" with the new DNA influenced tree. And as you mention here this is one of there reasons my mistakes along with thinking others and the AI hint had the correct answers. I added plenty of docs from a few years back obtained from church records or other sources I paid for. Focusing on Italian gp and gg+ parents which is more difficult to obtain at the get go. My problem is that I was enamored/excited with the data and a bit pressured to get data before the ancestry subscription ran out! So in a hurry to push the buttons with out some basic lessons? Then learn to make a practice tree or two first. I have my grandkids label with my brothers name, and who knows what else. Great lessons here for other newbies and thought I would share here. Thanks again and kind regards, Rich

[@kerryjlynch1]

I actually have an ancestor who was "two different people," in a way. It took a while to figure it all out. He brought two wives & their children from England to the US. Apparently, there were men in Victorian England who took two wives because there were limited men due to wars, & women had so few opportunities. He put them in separate houses in Chicago. Eventually, his first wife (one of my heroes) took her children to Kansas & established farms that are on "England Road."

[@kimnorris9445]

Thank you for this great information! I have come across some stumbling blocks to my research, but using different names I found what I was looking for. For example; in searching for my grandmother, Cicely Wills, I found limited documents. Knowing her mother's name was Jessie I found the 1920 census listed my grandmother as "Bicoly". The people at Ancestry who have to decipher the handwritten documents had a hard time reading the cursive capital C in her name. At least I found her paper trail. But... who would name a child Bicoly! ha ha

[@annatomasso5226]

Love this, to often I have seen people just click other peoples work without actually looking at it. I always look at multiple sources before adding something. Photo's being added to the wrong person or you have so many within your tree that have similar names that cousins often misuse one person for another.

[@Gancanna]

Wise advice. I ran into something like that today when using the member connect feature to look for other Ancestry Members (and potential relatives) researching the same people. I already had a death certificate for a 3rd GGF with parents listed as Evan and Catherine as well as a death date of 1925. Several hints popped up with the 3rd GGF's father's name as being Martin. Every one in the small group of trees that I found had apparently used those hints without reviewing them and had an unsourced death date of 1920. Using that "Ancestry Members Trees" features as a source as opposed to specifying the documents is also unwise if only for the fact that if people take their trees down, your sources are also gone.

[@patty4349]

Yes, I found a tree that was very wrong in terms of recent members' relationships. These were members of my family whom I actually knew, so I am definitely more correct than the online tree. I do not think that they much cared when I sent them a summary of corrections since they did not fix it or take it down.

[@songwritersink131]

Loved it. Very clean presentation and you confirmed a lot.

[@johngillen275]

Useful information, but it isn't limited only to Suggested Records: Even with Ancestry Hints, I have often found that all of 9 or 10 hints will refer to a completely unrelated person whose name just happens to be similar to the one I am searching.

[@TropicalHonduranDominican]

im glad that i have the ability to double check the hints so they is no more confusion. whatever suggested or similar record of someone with the same name just check out the details and comprehensive info more than twice.

[@garyfowler5585]

Good information. Thank you. Your presentation style is excellent, clear, a good pace...

[@AmyJohnsonCrow]

Thank you for the kind words! I’m glad you enjoyed the video 😊

[@sandramrichardson9025]

Thank you so much for verifying what I am experiencing with the hints and suggested records. So many are not in my family. We appreciate your assistance.👍

[@AmyJohnsonCrow]

You are so welcome! :-)

[@charlayned]

Oh, I can agree with this one. My family on one side (father's) are Smiths and Browns. OMG, and so many have the same first or middle (or both) names. Tracing the Browns was easier because there were good records. They married into a Clayton line. The Smiths, however, have been a booger to try to find. For the longest time I had the wrong great grandparents on that side before one record pointed me in a different direction. I'm stymied now in between North Carolina and Georgia 1785- 1847. I can find them in one place, but not in another. I ALWAYS look at the document, not just the pulled information. Sometimes there are relatives living close by, or their occupation can point me in a different direction. My husband sometimes laughs at my doggedness on tracking this stuff for both my tree and his. But, it's a big jigsaw puzzle, one the cat can't jump up on and mess up!

[@angelataylor3822]

I am also related to the smiths but there is a ton of smiths in the world

[@Barbara-pe2jf]

Truth. I have a common last name and my ancestors seem to be a James, Mary, or William. So, I named my son William. 😂

[@filibertogarced]

Very important information. Thank you. It is important to check every detail.

[@klomax7089]

Great and helpful info tfs! 👍🏽❤️👍🏽

[@bridgetcampbell6629]

This was so clear and helpful. Thank you! I'm wondering how you handle "maybe" records. Do you ever attach them to your tree if you're not 100 percent positive? If not, do you save them somewhere else and go back to them later? I'd love to hear about your workflow for that. Thanks again. Love your channel!

[@AmyJohnsonCrow]

If you mean do I mark specific hints as "Maybe," I do (mostly just to get them off of the list). They are still available to see if you go into the hints page, and they can still appear on results pages when you do a search. (So don't be afraid that you're going to lose it!) If it's a record that I come across that I'm not sure if it fits and I'm not confident to attach it, but it seems like a good possibility, I'll add it to my research notes that I keep in Google Docs.

[@bridgetcampbell6629]

@@AmyJohnsonCrow Thanks, Amy! That's good to know. I need to get better at keeping my research notes for sure. Thanks again for the quick reply.

[@harrybarrow6222]

I created my family tree on Ancestry, and after a while I realised that I had added some erroneous information (perhaps because of helpful “hints”). So, I created a second tree “my VERIFIED family tree”. It only contains people and links that I have verified to be correct.

[@Fuzzmom903]

These concerns apply to nearly every “hint.” That’s why there’s a “maybe” and a “no” for hints.

[@suez8070]

As a seasoned family historian I always look over records to see if it fits right. It is wise to examine the record before accepting it. Good advise.

[@northernstar5339]

This has happened to me. Suggested hints. Same name but different dates when they were born and passed away. It made me think if I have the right date and made me question the information I have usually from death certificates or from people who knew them.

[@johnwoods7650]

Although Ancestry makes it very easy to construct a family tree, sometimes this is a disadvantage. I noticed when looking at the trees of my DNA matches that a number had constructed their trees entirely from using Ancestry family trees without any other sources to check them against. Of course, for recent cousins sometimes other family trees are all you have to go on because the needed sources haven't been released yet, but it is dangerous to solely use others' family trees earlier than the latest released source which in my country, England, is the UK's 1939 Register. People make mistakes in their trees. Indeed, I made a major mistake in my tree, which, despite correcting it somewhat, is still being reproduced by others through Ancestry family trees. Having said that, Ancestry Thrulines works on matching family trees of DNA matches, and I've found that very useful even though I always try to check the links in my own tree through alternative sources.

[@highpath4776]

for some reason NONE of my family is on the 1939 register (knowing my family they probably lied to the authorities). It was also taken at a time when some folk had already moved due to war work and ended up away from their normal residence, sometimes the person providing the information might put down that people were in place when they were also away (and thus recorded twice) , other folk were omitted as the information (or even the building) could not be found on the date of survey - sometimes added in on addenda pages, sometime not. Finally women if they married later the (NHS) updated the register with the new surname and the transcriptions have not followed that through correctly,

[@johnwoods7650]

@@highpath4776 - You make a good point about people moving away from where they were from during the war preparations in 1939. This particularly applies to city children who were evacuated to safer countryside areas. It also applies to anyone, such as my uncle, who joined the military. He was with his family 100s of miles away from his own area and his wife gave birth there. With regard to people being entered when they weren't there. I think that unlikely as the data collection was in preparation for war and was most probably far stricter than for censuses.

[@dplj4428]

Thank you for explaining the randomness of suggested records.

[@chalktalkwithshari4173]

There are many genealogists on KZbin. I subscribed to you because I appreciate your 7 minute mini-lecture. Some draw a quick lesson out for 20-60 minutes. 😵‍💫

[@AmyJohnsonCrow]

I’m glad you’re enjoying my channel! Thanks for subscribing!

[@teresaeckford5072]

great video on an important topic :)

[@LeeRalph100]

I have found several trees with my line in it, that have many errors because of these "suggested" records. Sadly, in a couple of these tree's my line is VERY distant from their own tree, or not connected at all. Also sadly, these tree owners seem to be the most stubborn about changing or removing this wrong info about MY family. Thank You for this much need video!!!!!!!!

[@jjbud3124]

All this is true. How many times have I clicked on that leaf to find records that do not belong to the person? More than I'd like. Always check those records.

[@TheArnaa]

That explains so much. 😊

[@andirutherford2615]

Totally agree with these, i would always check from more than one source, never take at facevalue

[@loulaevert-smith1728]

You are soo amazing. Thank you for all the information. It is such a pity all the information is only for "overseas" we, in South Africa.. are struggling with information..as our records has been discarded. And not been archived at all wish we had you down here!!! We are giving up. You can only search so long.

[@kennethdandurand3472]

At 2:54 AM, I chuckled but you are absolutely right! Everyone copies each other and even if the 'shown' person on someone else's tree info, does NOT mean the information on all the others it shows.

[@seannachaidh9999]

Every novice genealogist needs to watch this video.

[@LadyMinKansas]

Can I just copy your brain and put it next to my computer when I research??? 🤣🤣 Loving the tips and tricks.

[@AmyJohnsonCrow]

I'm not sure a copy of my brain would be a good thing! 😂😂 I'm glad you're enjoying the channel!

[@amethystanne4586]

It is important to read the picture of the census records. Do not assume the summary in the center of the page is correct. I found my Dad on the 1950 U.S. Census. I knew his personal history from him telling us. The summary was shockingly wrong. It was reassuring to read the record. Computers have a hard time interpreting handwriting.

[@traceyserle5940]

The same problem exists with Ancestry Hints. I don't know how they compile the Hints list but I think it's a popularity contest of how many times a record has been saved to a particular individual's profile. When one researcher includes an incorrect record and it's copied by another 30 people, it's right at the top of the hints list, seems like. That just compounds the problem. A wrong record never becomes "more correct" with frequent, incorrect usage.

[@lynnecruz7457]

When I first joined the site, I did rely on the public family trees of others. What a mistake. Once I realized that some people aren't doing diligent research, I spent a lot of time going through and deleting branches.

[@maryanncrody4867]

I've been doing this for years but rarely use suggested section

[@tanelise4673]

I'm currently trying to figure out which family is mine. I have 2 couples around the same age and live in the same county and their names and Charles and Priscilla Frazier. Both have a son named Dunbar as well as other children, but not an exact match on the children. The two census records were taken about a week apart so I don't know if I have two families or whether it's the same family who moved got counted twice

[@alkmsn]

I have had to redo my tree so many times from accepting hints, especially Family Trees. I take the information or download the photo, but never download hints or suggested records because they mess up my tree.

[@DaimlerSleeveValve]

You are absolutely correct that it can ruin your tree. However it is EXACTLY the same as their "hints", but with "Other Ancestry Trees" expanded. There are FAR too many treeholders who have believed the ads and concluded that every hint they see MUST be Gospel Truth, so accepted it. This lowers the average quality of hints in general.

[@robintyde5441]

Common names can confuse many. I research to make sure the information jives with the person I am profiling. I have also put the maiden name of the mother of most of my profiles in the name as a middle name or ( ) this helps to make sure where the profile person comes from... Thank you your video is very good.

[@AmyJohnsonCrow]

If you have your tree online, you might want to be careful about putting the mother’s maiden name as a middle name or in parentheses. It can mess up searches that you start from your tree (and get weird hints). If your tree is public, it would also be easy for people to think that mother’s maiden name really is the person’s middle name.

[@yvonnefarrell1029]

At 4:35 you hit on one of my pet peeves with Ancestry which is yes, my GGF is listed on his daughter's birth record, but that does not make him the key person on that record. I have no idea what to do with those records. All this amounts to why, when I finally get the $$ to do so, I'm hiring a professional genealogist to tie up some little dead ends on my family tree. Thanks for this video and for the detailed information!

[@AmyJohnsonCrow]

What I do in cases where you get the hint or suggested record for someone who isn’t the “main” person is click on that person’s name in the record. That brings up the version of the record page that has them as the focus. Then I attach that record to the main person. I wish I knew why Ancestry bothers with those other versions of the record page.

[@grantfahlman1815]

@@AmyJohnsonCrow Awesome information! I hadn't thought of that/didn't realize it's possible. 👍

[@jjbud3124]

@@AmyJohnsonCrow I was actually able to verify a person with that kind of record. Several people had the wrong person listed as a wife of my great grandfather, and I was pretty certain it was wrong. Turned out I was right with a record of birth for their child and a Social Security death record of the child. I did attach those records to my great grandfather as verification, because that is the ONLY verification that exists.

[@bpbeary8011]

Sometimes the opposite is true; I had a couple instances where we believed we had an ancestor ID'd by a census record, until looking at the suggestions revealed that there were 2 people w/ the same name, and further digging showed that the one we'd had in our tree for years was the wrong one.

[@highpath4776]

helps if you can find some other relatives to talk to, I missed speaking to some grandparents but even they did not know everything due to document loss or estrangement from other family members.

[@OlJarhead]

@OlJarhead 0 seconds ago I currently have over 14,500 people in my tree and have been working on it for over 30 years. One of the biggest mistakes I see on Ancestry is people taking information from others trees at face value and copying it into their own. I have found countless mistakes that have been copied by others over and over and put into their own trees without them validating anything. The same goes for any information from census, birth, death, military records, etc. ALWAYS look at the images if they are available, as I CONSTANTLY find information that has been incorrectly transcribed from the records themselves. You have to VERIFY AND VALIDATE EVERYTHING!

[@TheLordOfNothing]

Hints can be very destructive. One hint can destroy your tree. However, hints can be extremely useful if you are looking for the last piece of information, (a marriage date, etc.) it can come in handy. Make sure you evaluate your hints or make sure you have background knowledge.

[@opathe2nd973]

It's amazing how many people have ancestors who came over on the Mayflower. The false information is frustrating and really time consuming. I found an ancestor who was 7 and died in Plymouth and she was the mother of a another person and she was 7! Fun travelling through this stuff, but glad I'm retired. Thanks.

[@DakotaCelt1]

I look at the Suggested Records carefully. Sometimes I find good things and other times they are way off base.

[@flufwix]

Thank you. I’ve found records attached that I personally know are incorrect

[@janetpuckett1750]

I totally agree! My 2nd grt grandfather, Henry A. Redmond, was supposedly in MD. However, the only suggested records have him in TX. and Tenn. When clicking on the links, the only thing that was similar was the BD. Wife's wrong, kids wrong etc. His son is supposed to have gone to Mexico for several yrs. he came back about 1866, I can find him in Montana until he died in 1910, but no parents. So either Dad stayed in Mexico or maybe there was a family disruption and Dad remarried and had another family. I find it strange that I can find no trace of "my" Henry A. Redmond. Interesting thing is son Henry never said what happened to his father to my then living relatives. Oh well, I'll just keep looking.

[@tracyemailchat944]

When you are inputting name initials or suffixes, leave off the periods. The searches give better results without any periods.

[@Old52Guy]

Yup. I've used the leaf feature a couple of times. The last time threw me into an entirely new branch that made no sense. Took hours to sort it out.

[@AmyJohnsonCrow]

Yes, hints (the shaky leaf feature) and the suggested records can definitely make a mess of things if you're not careful! (Don't feel bad -- we've all been there!)

[@Jamestele1]

I've run into this feature on Ancestry. It can be a great tool, if you use it correctly, but I agree that anything that potentially good, can throw you into confusion!

[@grcleve7053]

The big problem is most are too lazy to actually dig in and research. They expect their tree to miraculously just "pop" up in the 2 week free trial. Lol Most just use the copy and paste method, use no legitimate documents just "the trees" out there. I know, I learned the hard way. Had to delete most of my tree 6 months into working it and begin again the correct way. Document, document, document! There were weeks where I thought my eyes were going to break from reading the scribbles of writings on the wills, marriage records, birth, baptism, church, court, census and land records. It did pay off when I took a dna test 3-4 years into my quest. While so many said they had no success and the dna was a scam (because they had bogus, make believe trees), mine was solid! Great advice you are giving here!👍

[@AmyJohnsonCrow]

While there is some laziness, in my observations, it seems to be a lot of not understanding how research works. They've been lead to believe that Ancestry (or whatever genealogy site) has all of the answers and that all they have to do is start looking.

[@grcleve7053]

@@AmyJohnsonCrow So true. Another thing I have personally found frustrating is having family members who are recently retired "teachers" and a law enforcement detective that have declined my pleas for just a tad bit of searching help...to be turned down. "But will love to see the fruit of my labors". 🧐🤷🤦

[@kentondickerson]

Keep in mind that people researching their family history can and do make mistakes. I use Family Search (a free service) and have had to correct severla obvious mistakes that other people have made.

[@sophierobinson2738]

I use Family Search and Ancestry together.

[@christienelson1437]

We using this years ago I came across some errors like birthdates being off by a year. Apparently other relatives entered the wrong date but everything else matched up. Many ancestors used nicknames like Ellen or Betty for Elizabeth but I knew this at the time. Fortunately another relative had done a lot of research before this and information started to match up. Double check everything because small mistakes can cause big problems. Good luck🙏💕

[@backpackingonline]

The 'leaf' suggestion has messed up my family tree many many times. I have had to remove it, to find it is not all removed. This is how I have so many branches and twigs that remain in my GEDCOM. There are so many, and I have no software tool to remove them.

[@MeadeSkeltonMusic]

I found that it's actually pretty accurate. My ancestors were fairly well known. The key is to check birth dates and death dates so it adds up . Use common sense

[@rogerthornhill1547]

There's a saying: Start with a barrel of fine wine and a barrel of sewage. If you add a glass of the fine wine to the barrel of sewage, you still have a barrel of sewage. If you add a glass of the sewage to the barrel of fine wine, you now have two barrels of sewage. I'm more convinced of its relevance as I encounter more uploaded, unsourced "genealogy" research. I have occasionally used Ancestry available at the library. Only occasionally. Findagrave is becoming so polluted and no way to contact anyone for a question or correction. Wikitree and Familysearch are my basic online tools.

[@tenaguin1054]

Good suggestions. I ended up with my tree really messed up so I just stopped and didn't renew my subscription. I couldn't get any further with new information and all of a sudden I noticed several changes made to my tree I hadn't made. It was a fairly extensive tree and members of my daughter in law also had a pretty extensive tree. Somehow there were some crosses between the two trees with my son who is their son on law. Once that happened I could barely recognize my family tree so I just stopped. I had not shared my tree with anyone but as soon I clicked that I recognized my son, it seems the system just took off making changes by itself.

[@AmyJohnsonCrow]

Are you sure you were still looking at your tree? It's easy to end up looking at someone else's tree and not realize it. On Ancestry nobody else can make changes to your tree unless you have specifically invited them to your tree as an editor (which is a multi-step process, not something you would likely do accidentally).

[@dcowboysfan2540]

My dad found royalty on his side of the family last name of it is Cholmondeley

[@AW-pz3qc]

I wish this was compulsory viewing for those new to tracing their family tree, as someone kept 'updating' incorrect information and I was left with no alternative but to make my page 'private' so all of my hard work remained intact. Oh, an off-topic question please? I just love your glasses and wondering if you could share the manufacturer and style name so I might be able to follow up. They are the shape that suits my face and my favourite colour as well. Thanks in advance.

[@maryanncrody4867]

Trees I use a rarely as I can but sometime I have found

[@kjmav10135]

i’ve found some really goofy stuff on Ancestry’s Suggested Records-people born in Salem, Massachusetts in 1592? You really have to check. I’m fortunate in that my mom’s family didn’t move very much, so the gravestones are in known family plots and the baptismal records are all pretty much either in Vermont or, earlier, in Massachusetts going all the way back to the 1600s. We also have long lines of male ancestors so that the last name remained the same for generations of grandparents. That makes the hunt easier, too. The thing that has tripped me up is the fact that spouses would die and the survivor would re-marry. Which wife is my GGrandmother? That’s a little trickier. Going back to England is also challenging. I have some confidence in some of the folks that go back that far, but I was amused to notice a lot of Lords and Ladies showing up all of a sudden when I got back to the 1570s or so. 😂😂😂 How could my scalawag ancestors come from such fancy stock??? Highly unlikely! I just chuckle at the thought. I figure, going back that far, we’re reaching 10,000 or more sets of great grandparents, and that’s not counting aunts uncles and cousins-so, basically, if you come from the UK, we’re related! My dad’s family is much, much harder to track, because many of the records are Danish and German. So, there’s a language barrier.

[@barnowl.]

Also look CAREFULLY at the actual census records. In my FT the typed out records of some names have been wrongly written due the mis-reading of them by the recorders. Therefore, others who do not know the correct names have the wrong names in their FTs.

[@BaskingInObscurity]

Yes, Ancestry certainly makes genealogy easier than it used to be, especially compared to before Cindy's List. But it's also made it WAY too easy to incorrectly attribute records to the wrong people. It's still a lot of work-more, even, than the old days when a researcher was lucky to go back more than two or three more generations than previously known. That's the tradeoff for having the Internet. Know how to scrutinize before making assumptions. I'm glad Ancestry finally added some areas for notes on specific records and surety ranking, so now I feel more comfortable adding people and records to my tree while not confirming them. Still, I hope they get around to making the surety/still researching features more robust.

[@caroladkins3407]

Just curious as to how many generations of cousins should you add to your tree?

[@lindacarroll6896]

What is the Geneanet Community Trees Index?

[@AmyJohnsonCrow]

Geneanet is a genealogy website based out of France. It was purchased by Ancestry in 2021. Ancestry now includes an index to the trees that are on Geneanet. Like any other tree, you have to verify them, but because Geneanet is based out of France, you could end up seeing cousins that aren't on Ancestry.

[@Wrapscallionn]

The funny thing about this video is : that William A. Skinner on the thumbnail is actually an ancestor of mine. Heh.

[@HowWeGotHere]

Very important information I know it's the one thing that frustrates people the most, but often I find it is some of the same people who complain that somebody added or removed records from an ancestror who go and do the same things themselves because they are just not taking the time to pay attention to the records they are adding. I had one client that had one of his ancestors in multiple places on his tree

[@AmyJohnsonCrow]

The way that Ancestry designed accepting hints makes it *way* too easy to make duplicate profiles. I've seen that more and more often since they last changed it.

[@carokat1111]

@@AmyJohnsonCrow Yes! Is there any way to get this fixed?

[@gergemall]

Thx ❤

[@sharontabor7718]

Thank You! Thank you! Thank you! This is one of my major pet peeves and the fact that people won't change their trees even if you provide them with documentation. And that means Thru-Lines is more inaccurate than helpful. I have an ancestor named Willis Center, b. 1786 SC, d. 1858 Allen County, KY. The major of researchers attach Willis S. Senter b. 1786 TN/NC (Tn wasn't even a state until 1796) - 1850 Roane County, TN. Why? Because Willis S has a documented parentage via a will, and my Willis does not. People don't think about the distance and difference in death date, etc.

[@AmyJohnsonCrow]

It used to be that other people's trees didn't really bother me because their tree didn't affect my research. But now with ThruLines, it opens up a whole new can of confirmation bias.

[@melvinlee5684]

I’m having problems with birthdates. I find records that everything fits perfect but the birthdate may be as different as 10 to 15 years. I’m seeing this a lot on census records. I’m wondering if they lied about their age or sometimes just didn’t know.

[@davidjones5547]

My brother, who has a phd in bio-physical chemistry once told me that to get an accurate DNA test would cost a person thousands of $ and not just the cost of what these scam sites charge. I have taken DNA tests with Ancestry, 23 and Me and My Heritage and the results came out completely different from one another. It is all the same DNA. So why are the results so different?

[@AmyJohnsonCrow]

Great question! If you’re talking about ethnicity, long story short: it depends upon the testing company’s reference panel and their algorithm. The reference panel is the DNA they compare against to determine ethnicity. Each company has its own panel. The algorithm is the formula they use to run the calculations; each company has its own. It isn’t a scam (at least, not with the major testing companies!), but the ethnicity estimates should be taken as just that - an estimate.

[@greebo6549]

I've done my full family tree, ie. Both my parents/grandparents sides... and seen some laughably bad mistakes...same name and birth year but living with different parents in different census years, or by fluke... same parents names and roughly correct years, but completely different siblings

[@brianedwards9240]

I am new at Ancestry and some how blew up a good part of my tree by trying to correct someone who looked like they should fit in about the middle of a family line but didn’t. It had some interesting people that intersected my tree line with very similar husband and wife names and dates in Northern Ireland when everyone was named John, Thomas or William. The kids didn’t match up and because it was the early and mid 1800’s not much earlier records. I spent many hours trying to recreate it including a lot of merging because I somehow created 5 Thomas Williams by adding census records. This all happened because I got frustrated trying to correct it by deleting a person. I could probably correct it now but It would be nice if like in computer games they had a saved point that you could go back to where you had it right.

[@marcilk7534]

My dad had something wrong on his family tree because something on Anccestry got mixed up with someone of a same name. I had to go through a whole bunch of stuff to prove to him the person is not our ancestor and who the right person is.

[@cindypack5110]

I have a question, that may or may not have to do with this video. What would you say to someone who is seriously thinking of deleting they're family tree on Ancestry and starting from the beginning?

[@AmyJohnsonCrow]

That’s a great question! I wouldn’t delete the tree that you have. There are likely sources that you have in there that you’d like to keep. If your tree isn’t too big, delete the people that shouldn’t be in there. If your tree is too big or too messy for that, start a new tree. But keep the old one so you can more easily get to the sources that you’d like to keep.

[@cindypack5110]

@@AmyJohnsonCrow I have an Ancestry subscription and it auto matically fills in the info when it finds it. Is there any way to get around that? Bottom line is my tree isn't that big but I'm afraid that somewhere along the line there is some wrong information and I'm not sure exactly where or who it is.

[@AmyJohnsonCrow]

If you mean that Ancestry fills in the search form automatically, it only fills in with data from the current tree. If you're working in a new tree, it won't fill in based on the old tree. (And even when it does fill in, you don't have to use that data. You can enter whatever you want.) If you mean that it gives you hints automatically, yes, you'll still get hints, but you don't have to accept them all. (In fact, you shouldn't accept them all. Not all hints are for the right person.)

[@kevinreynolds7068]

To learn pure research put away computer records and use libraries, funeral home records, birth and death certificates at the state level, obituaries, census records on microfilm. ETC. You will write a lot of letters of inquiry. You will spend a lot of time in libraries. Before computers we did this and examined each record for verifying information. Do not fall into the trap of accepting hints as the gospel. Verify other researcher's work. You might have errors, but that is to be expected as the living relatives of an ancestor may not have provided the correct information on that person.

[@Hadassah-KaquoliMReno]

I’ll have to agree! They said I didn’t have Native American blood, my Cherokee grandfather told me I did! And when I pointed out that they made a mistake they refused to do it again!

[@scottishhellcat]

Someone went on my family tree on family search. They added my great aunt but added the wrong man as her husband. I sent a messenge but she hasn't been active in three years. It is exasperating.

[@AmyJohnsonCrow]

FamilySearch has one big, collaborative tree. If there is something incorrect on there, you can log in and change it. Ancestry, on the other hand, has individual trees. Other people can’t change your tree unless you specifically invite them to.

[@rocksandoil2241]

I have found a lot of mistakes on line. One on Findagrave, misstates the spouse of an ancestor's brother - tried to say she was buried on their farm. My research showed the Corp of Engineers moved her body and her husbands from a future lake to a new site and it was confirmed by their daughter in the 1930s. Published by the Corp of Engineers. I challenged the listing but the poster refused to change it.

[@jledford5644]

✔️ 😊 Thanks

[@lauramclain2870]

My mom is finding that her records are being messed up by people that don’t know to actually do the research first. There are people on her tree that she spoke to personally before they passed so she could record their information accurately. Someone has entered and attached totally wrong people and it has messed up all of her hard work! Is it possible to fix this and if so how can she do it and stop her tree from being destroyed? How do you keep your own records safe? She thought her tree was private. She is so upset about it that she has stopped working on her history that she loves so much.

[@jimtastic688]

For some reason, she has invited people to edit her tree. She has changed the tree's settings to allow others to edit the tree. That is not the default setting. The default setting is to allow others to view the tree, but not edit it. She needs to review all settings, and change them to what she wants.