To be fair it is only because people like you have built these trees that the information is available in the first place. So, no, you have not been wasting your life.

I don't think you wasted your life it could be the fact from you doing the research you have filled out a lot of your family members who accepted your info as their hints. So quite possibly it was from yourself

@VanessaBland

3 жыл бұрын

Like a research inception! It's a big cycle :)

Interesting experiment!

Great concept for a video. Wish I had thought of it.

@VanessaBland

3 жыл бұрын

Feel free to do your own version, I'm curious if other people have as much accuracy as me!!

I think this is most likely to work if you are of European, especially Anglo-Saxon, heritage. I am from Colombia and everyone in my family tree up to my 3rd Great Grandparents was born there as well. There are relatively few records from Colombia that have been digitized; most of the “hints” I could really use have been the ones that show us doing something in the United States.

@VanessaBland

Жыл бұрын

It depends on how many people have built family trees in your country of heritage. Mine were in Australia and I guess lots of people here have done these branches. Good luck with your research! Are there some archives you can visit in person? Hopefully, they'll start to digitise more soon :)

@loroimperial

Жыл бұрын

@@VanessaBland Thanks! What really matters in my opinion are the primary sources. You can’t always rely on trees that others have built because there could be errors that become amplified if many people copy it without double checking for accuracy. Yes, I have had to do much of my research the old fashioned way; actually going to the notary offices and churches to look for civil registrations, baptism records, marriage certificates, dates on tombstones, etc. I am so jealous of my American friends who can find these type of records online for generations of their family without ever leaving their house. The only Colombian record I found like this was the marriage of two of my 2nd Great Grandparents in 1895, which I already knew about. But still, it was nice to see it had been digitally recorded.

What a great experiment! So interesting! I agree with the commenter who said much of the material might have cycled back to you from your own tree. Also, I notice that your tree includes many distinctive names. So you might be getting better results than someone with family names like Smith, Campbell, McDonald etc. Also--you have not wasted ten years! Not unless your goal was to have a tree with a lot of names on it--and what would be the point of that? I'd say you've spent 10 years getting to know your ancestors very well, and putting them in context, and that the whole process has been deeply meaningful. It's not about the end result (in my opinion). I'm pretty sure that's your opinion too? Cheers from Canada!

@VanessaBland

Жыл бұрын

I totally agree with you! I was just kidding about the wasted time :D Hints are great but I'm a stickler for sources, and I don't consider ancestry trees to be a source. Thanks for watching!!

@spab0252

Жыл бұрын

Cool experiment. Main thing with Ancestry’s ’hints’: For ”real” family research (i.e., with sources, etc. 😀) one can and should opt out of hints based on ”Member Trees”. What’s really useful are those based on ”Records”, which is one of the options Ancestry offers... albeit with the exception of a little ’noise’, such as their including member trees from other platforms (e.g., Geneanet) as record hints. In my case, that resulted in a spurious hint for every single person in my tree, since I also uploaded the whole tree there, as well as to several other platforms. Pleased I discovered your channel. Friendly regards, Alan

I hope when you set up the tree you didn't let Ancestry use this tree in hints for others to use, or even index because even in genuine research, before I knew too much about the system I added, from some records a very speculative record for some of my Irish ancestors. People who trust me as a valid researcher added it to the tree and people have copied their tree. I have since removed it from my tree as it is obviously not correct but Ancestry keeps suggesting it back to me and it is even in my Thru Lines as a common ancestor because I put it out there in the first place (the record in question was a marriage record in Dublin that was after the ancestor in question had anyway had 2 children). I can't take this back now, except maybe messaging all the people who added it into their trees, which is a lot of effort, and even then I'm not even sure if the Ancestry ecosystem corrects itself after people remove things from their trees, except on the people's trees hints of course. One other thing I would say, and others have said as well, is that all the work you've already done has fed into the hints you're just accepting so this isn't the true test you think it is. You would need to start with someone else's tree, someone who has never built their family tree before, and even then it depends on how diligently those whose trees appear in the hints have built their trees. In your experiment you'd need to know how many of those whose trees you're accepting information from have built it from hints gotten from you and your research (even if it isn't from your tree the record hints are built from people's trees so this could still be the case indirectly). I also don't think one attempt at doing this, or even a few, would be a good experiment as you could just be lucky. I've been contacted by people who have noticed mistakes in my tree that are fairly close relatives of them and I'm now fairly consciousness about not just accepting hints unless there are exact dates and locations I already know about people or are backed up by a second source.

@VanessaBland

Жыл бұрын

I deleted the tree afterward 🙂 It was just me fooling around, I definitely don't recommend that anyone build their tree this way! (even if it sort of worked out for me). Thanks for the comment!

I think the fault here lies with choosing an Ancestry Member Tree hint. The top AMT listed as a hint may be someone who is an active researcher. If you focused more on Record hints, it is there where you will end up with the “one-off” incorrect record. Someone with the same name and similar birthdate but from Canada. Or someone who marries someone with the exact same name as your ancestors. Another issue is the “Not a New Person” feature. Sometimes a person may be named John Alan and you know your ancestor went by Alan most of his life. Ancestry could suggest a John with the same last name but is not your ancestor. I have a match on my maternal side who has a couple with the following children. William, Edward, Edward, Edward, Edward, Anna, Anna, Anna, Anna, William, William, William, Steven, Stephen D, Steven, Steven, Denis L, Denis Leo, Dennis, … well there’s nine more. I’m like Come On? Didn’t you know you were saving duplicates? The tree has 937 people. I’ve messaged him/her to connect and maybe clean up this mess. I’m sure it messes up the Ancestry algorithm for hints.

@VanessaBland

3 жыл бұрын

Thanks for the comment! Yes, I totally agree that the record hints are a minefield. I suspect many people do just accept every hint and like you said, end up with duplicates and incorrect people. I've seen trees where the individual lives in Australia but then they've added a Canadian census and another one in England etc so it looks like the person is a world traveller! And other people who add census records in years AFTER the person has died haha 🤦‍♀️ No common sense.

@DanSolo871

3 жыл бұрын

@@VanessaBland I review all hints and ignore the Ancestry member Trees (or AMTs) because to me, AMTs are not sources. In addition to the unmerged duplicate tree i described, I came across one where the person saved for an ancestor an 1900 US Census, then the ancestor was somehow on the 1901 UK census, then back in the US for the 1910 Census, then back in the UK for some record in the 1910s. And the name was something like Andrew King, which is beyond common, if you're that lazy scrutinizing location for an ancestor, you should not be doing genealogy. BTW, I'm trying to get an Aussie distant cousin of mine to touch base with you. I reached out because her profile pic has her playing guitar. :) She was adopted and when she gave me managing rights to her Ancestry, she had a 1/2 sister at the top! She reached out and I believe recently met up with her. She might be an interesting story for you.

@VanessaBland

3 жыл бұрын

@@DanSolo871 Ahh we are in total agreement, adding records like that is just totally lazy and pointless. I agree that AMT's are not hints. They can sometimes point you in directions worth pursuing, but you definitely have to do the work yourself. I look forward to hearing from your distant cousin if she decides to reach out. Thanks :)

@SophiaFletcherMusic

3 жыл бұрын

Hello dear cousin @Daniel Peterson and @@VanessaBland . How fantastic to be connected with you here. This is all very fascinating. Daniel has been instrumental as the primary assistance for the ancestral tracing of global cultures... from the goodness of his heart. Yes, it is true, that I have recently met with my half sister, and paternal father; with regular continued contact. We get on extremely well. It has changed my life for the better. I am yet to meet my half brother. I am a singer/songwriter and one of the original songs (unreleased as yet) for the next upcoming album, called 'The Mirror Reflected' touches on the deep diving of my adoption story, partly written before I even knew about my half sister. I never gave up hope of finding my origins. It is my hope to convey to others; to be able to relate and find comfort through the often times challenging and saddening journey, which can lead to happy outcomes...Celebrating the legacy towards a greater sense of belonging and honouring the wisdom of trauma. Looking forward to connecting with you. Thank You 💓

@VanessaBland

3 жыл бұрын

@@SophiaFletcherMusic That's a great story! Thanks for sharing :) I'm glad you had the chance to connect with your family and found it to be a positive experience. Best wishes with your upcoming album, it sounds like a very powerful message that you're weaving into your music :)