USING ANCESTRY.COM

 

I first tried Ancesty.com in 2007. I purchased a membership and started filling in the information that I had. I started with my immediate family - brother, parents, grand parents, aunts, uncles and cousins - it didn't take long before I had entered all the information I had available.

 

After I did this, I sat back and looked at my family tree. It looked more like a shrub than a tree - not many people on it at all. I was disappointed and felt like I had hit a wall. Then, like the ad on TV, a small leaf appeared as a hint. I clicked on the leaf and started finding more information about my relatives.

 

I was quite excited when this happened and started adding every piece of information that popped up, never thinking I needed to validate the information first. That was a BIG mistake!

 

One thing I have learned over the years is that historic information is not always accurate. Always double check the information, especially when adding information from other member's family trees! By the time I discovered that I had added in information that either didn't make sense (such as people being born after their parent's death), my tree was a mess. It is much easier to verify the information first than it is to try and undo the incorrect information later.

 

Tip: If you are unsure of the information contained in a hint, mark it as "maybe" and it will be saved without compromising your tree. You can always add the information later when you have verified the information.

 

I also learned that the best information to add to your family tree are those from documents, such as a census or birth records, and not from other member's trees. Just remember to open the document and view the information yourself. Most information contained on old documents is transcribed by volunteers, and while well meaning, I have encountered countless errors in the transcriptions.

 

Information contained in other family trees may or may not be helpful. Over the years I have discovered that it is best to write down the information you are interested in, verify it and then add it to your tree manually rather than merging the data with your tree. Not everyone carefully checks the information they enter into their tree and their mistakes will quickly become YOUR mistakes and they become problematic to remove at a later date.

 

Chosing a membership depends on how far along you are with your family tree. I suggest starting with a month to month membership for your own country first. As your tree grows and hints become less frequent, you can then move to a world membership. The world membership will allow you access to documents in other countries which is especially helpful if you have ancestors who immigrated to your country.

 

I suggest the month to month membership as you can quickly become overwhelmed by the information you find, or the lack of information, and when your tree research stops being fun you are less likely to continue. I have found that walking away from tree research for a few weeks sometimes allows you to renew your interest and allows allows the Ancestry system to generate a lot more "hints". Remember, researching your ancestry should be fun, not work!