Yes, it is - all mine are on. However, to the best of my knowledge I've never received any email notifications, however I only have one public tree.
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Errors in Ancestry Trees
- Thread starter Willibrod
- Start date
canadianbeth
LostCousins Star
I sent messages to a few closes matches a few months ago; one disappeared entirely - can the recipient do that?
A
At home in NZ
Guest
Apparently not but the sender can delete a message they sent and that is what I was referring to in thread #94.
From the support centre:
Currently, you can only delete messages you've sent, not messages the other person has sent. To delete a message you sent, open a message, hover over something you wrote, and click the trash can that appears.
There is more, in this link
Pauline
LostCousins Megastar
I came across an Ancestry tree today which told me all kinds of things about my ancestor that I didn't know before!
I have him marrying just once with 14 children to follow, but according to this tree he married 6 times, including twice before he was born and twice on the same day to different women.
By one wife he had two children, one born before he (my ancestor) was born and the other 34 years later, and by another wife he had 34 children within 25 years. It seems the other 4 wives didn't produce any children, which may have been something of a relief to him.
How do people manage not to notice what utter rubbish they are adding to their trees?
I have him marrying just once with 14 children to follow, but according to this tree he married 6 times, including twice before he was born and twice on the same day to different women.
By one wife he had two children, one born before he (my ancestor) was born and the other 34 years later, and by another wife he had 34 children within 25 years. It seems the other 4 wives didn't produce any children, which may have been something of a relief to him.
How do people manage not to notice what utter rubbish they are adding to their trees?
I would imagine it's because they've been offered hints. It can be difficult for beginners to know what to do.
Pauline
LostCousins Megastar
Fair enough, we all have to start somewhere. But it’s the not noticing which puzzles me - surely even a novice genealogist knows people can’t marry or have children before they’re born?
Perhaps they don't know which bits of information are wrong and which are right? Their only real error is to have made their tree public.
Pauline
LostCousins Megastar
Hardly. And in any case, whether to have your tree public or private is purely a matter of personal preference.
Absolutely not. Having a public tree means you have some level of responsibility to other Ancestry users - if you have a private tree you don't, you can experiment.
Surely this discussion is only taking place because the errors are in public trees?
Pauline
LostCousins Megastar
To some extent that’s true, and I’m aware that some people do make their trees private on a temporary basis for this reason.
But I suspect that a good many of the errors we see in Ancestry trees have nothing at all to do with ‘experimenting’. Nor are they limited to the trees of beginners.
A
At home in NZ
Guest
I have theories about that, having seen a tree that has my great grand parents with the correct amount of children but very many step children and some of those have different last names. It is such a mess I can't work out how it has happened.
The tree owner wasn't active when I first found the tree some years ago and still isn't but his errors are there for all to see.
My theories
The tree owner is sharing their tree and allowing others to contribute. I've seen a tree that has quite a list of contributors. I doubt that the actual owner has much control over the rubbish added.
The tree owner is using the Hints that are other trees and doing a 'merge' then not checking the result. In my naivety, many years ago I used a tree hint and the result was not as I expected, I never do it now.
The tree owner is adding people using a census and Ancestry is allocating the children incorrectly or, is creating a new parent. This does happen, therefore it's necessary to watch the process as you tick each person and examine profiles to ensure parents and children are matched correctly.
jorghes
LostCousins Superstar
Some of them also add the same person multiple times. I've seen trees with the same children added two or three times!
My personal favourites are still the ancestors who not only manage to have two wives who are having children at the same time, but they're also on other sides of the world! A couple of trees link my ancestor, who emigrated in 1839, to a series of census returns in England that belong to another family - I have never quite worked out how they think it's possible for someone to be having children in South Australia and Sussex at the same time.
Bob Spiers
LostCousins Superstar
I am, as most in the Forum know (and Peter especially), an advocate of Public Trees whilst accepting some people choose to go Private; so be it. But, for those who wish to 'hide their light under a bushel' ( to borrow from the biblical quotation), they can go one further and make their Tree unsearchable, visible only to themselves.
I recently saw the need to do this myself (surprise, surprise) to create an experimental Tree . Its purpose was to allow me to research a family adoption mystery (still a sore topic with some family members). I hope to become knowledgeable through interrogating Public Trees, borrowing and scrutinising as necessary. Cloak and Dagger perhaps, but sadly necessary and harming no one but myself.
As for Public Tree responsibilities, yes like driving a car one has responsibilities to do so safely and lawfully but the main purpose of the car is to get from a to b. Responsibility comes with experience (passing ones test if you like) and judging by the number of 'Mickey Mouse' Trees still out there, many, I fear are still 'Learners'. And just as my wife tells me when I am behind a car bearing an 'L' plate..."remember you once were a Learner so have patience" ... it is not easy to do so. Perhaps we need to have patience ourselves when viewing Trees clearly owned and worked by Novices.
I recently saw the need to do this myself (surprise, surprise) to create an experimental Tree . Its purpose was to allow me to research a family adoption mystery (still a sore topic with some family members). I hope to become knowledgeable through interrogating Public Trees, borrowing and scrutinising as necessary. Cloak and Dagger perhaps, but sadly necessary and harming no one but myself.
As for Public Tree responsibilities, yes like driving a car one has responsibilities to do so safely and lawfully but the main purpose of the car is to get from a to b. Responsibility comes with experience (passing ones test if you like) and judging by the number of 'Mickey Mouse' Trees still out there, many, I fear are still 'Learners'. And just as my wife tells me when I am behind a car bearing an 'L' plate..."remember you once were a Learner so have patience" ... it is not easy to do so. Perhaps we need to have patience ourselves when viewing Trees clearly owned and worked by Novices.
And if they didn't have L plates, would you be so tolerant?
PhilGee
LostCousins Member
I have a public tree attached to my DNA and a (large) number of "per family" trees that are private non-searchable. In theory, this allows me to research and extend a small tree and, when satisfied, update the large tree without introducing errors - error checking in FTM takes seconds for a small tree and many minutes for the full tree.
This approach is supported by a recent update where I skipped step one and modified the full tree - disaster! My system usually works well, but I missed a step somewhere and ended up with a number of people being a child of themselves and, for one person, about 30 husbands and wives (?) over a 100 year period! Fortunately, deleting people and re-applying the update (which is done by merging a GEDCOM file) got things back as they should be!
Bob Spiers
LostCousins Superstar
Sadly, a good point and the answer would indeed be NO, as my wife would testify. But that is motoring and for some reason I cannot explain, I am far more tolerant when it comes to uncovering Ancestry Tree nonsense. I often content myself with utterances..."what planet are you from" or "pull the other one" and then move on, making mental notes to avoid them in future. Of course for minor variances in seemingly matching Trees that might even call into question my own research, I will message. Providing of course I find they have been online in the last month or so. Often they have not and experience teaches I am unlikely to get a reply.
I once told a one-name study researcher who I got to know - he was researching my secondary paternal NAME line - that if the rest of his Tree resembled that part that coincided with my own research, he was living in cloud cuckoo land. As I recall he said something like .."well I won't be changing a thing". To him all that mattered was acquiring names, the more the merrier. Such people cannot be helped.
So am I - that's why I've been defending them.
Pauline
LostCousins Megastar
My post above was certainly not written to express intolerance. It was meant as a light-hearted comment, as I was actually somewhat amused by what I’d found in this tree, even though I was at the same time wondering how such obvious inconsistencies get overlooked by the tree owners.
Pauline
LostCousins Megastar
We touched on this earlier in this topic, but with some of the errors I've found in online trees, it seems they have occurred because people do not obtain certificates (or pdfs) or even check the 'new' online GRO indexes. Obviously buying certificates for relatives on every last twig of your tree can get prohibitively expensive, but not getting them for those in your direct line can be a false economy.
I've also found that quite a lot of people still seem to be unaware that they can now find the mother's maiden name and death ages from the GRO's own indexes, and that just checking those indexes could very quickly and cheaply eliminate some mistakes. For example, one of my relatives married twice between the 1841 and 1851 censuses, and most trees show the assumption that the wife shown in 1851 was mother of all the children shown - a mistake that can be easily spotted by checking the online birth indexes.
I've now started adding the link to the GRO indexes when I make a comment or message a tree owner, which seems mostly to be appreciated.
I've also found that quite a lot of people still seem to be unaware that they can now find the mother's maiden name and death ages from the GRO's own indexes, and that just checking those indexes could very quickly and cheaply eliminate some mistakes. For example, one of my relatives married twice between the 1841 and 1851 censuses, and most trees show the assumption that the wife shown in 1851 was mother of all the children shown - a mistake that can be easily spotted by checking the online birth indexes.
I've now started adding the link to the GRO indexes when I make a comment or message a tree owner, which seems mostly to be appreciated.
John Dancy
LostCousins Superstar
Regret relatively new to the forums (could say I was too busy searching, but recent conversation with Peter, and being in recovery mode from a broken ankle I have more time to read)
Two examples of tree 'errors' - The people who make them think they are correct hence the quotes.
1. Thomas Ross and his wife Sarah are living in Atherstone. He decides he wants to be a miner and moves to Brownhills, Staffs, where he apparently gets the kind of reputation that if you see him, or his wife, coming, you cross the street (Newspapers on Find my Past) . Registration area is Walsall. Ten trees shown against him on Ancestry, eight of which have him passing away in Walsall in 1928. Whilst he is a miner in 1901, by the 1911 census he is (according to their details) a piano tuner (names and ages of him and his wife match, so if you go from 1901 to 1911 it fits) A bit of a change but hey. In fact Thomas the miner and his wife had emigrated to Baltimore in 1909 where they passed away in the early 20s (their immigration records are available and deaths reported in Baltimore Press). If the original tree builder had gone from 1911 to 1901 he would have found the piano tuner in the same occupation in Walsall.
2. Last week a lady called Thirza is shown on two out of three trees as born 1877 died 1902 is still at home with her husband in 1911 and on the 1939 Register. Or was he just claiming her pension? Possible the original was created before the 1911 and 1939 records were released but why copied, or checked later.
Most of those I have contacted re errors are quite grateful, but many don't then carry out any correction to their trees
Two examples of tree 'errors' - The people who make them think they are correct hence the quotes.
1. Thomas Ross and his wife Sarah are living in Atherstone. He decides he wants to be a miner and moves to Brownhills, Staffs, where he apparently gets the kind of reputation that if you see him, or his wife, coming, you cross the street (Newspapers on Find my Past) . Registration area is Walsall. Ten trees shown against him on Ancestry, eight of which have him passing away in Walsall in 1928. Whilst he is a miner in 1901, by the 1911 census he is (according to their details) a piano tuner (names and ages of him and his wife match, so if you go from 1901 to 1911 it fits) A bit of a change but hey. In fact Thomas the miner and his wife had emigrated to Baltimore in 1909 where they passed away in the early 20s (their immigration records are available and deaths reported in Baltimore Press). If the original tree builder had gone from 1911 to 1901 he would have found the piano tuner in the same occupation in Walsall.
2. Last week a lady called Thirza is shown on two out of three trees as born 1877 died 1902 is still at home with her husband in 1911 and on the 1939 Register. Or was he just claiming her pension? Possible the original was created before the 1911 and 1939 records were released but why copied, or checked later.
Most of those I have contacted re errors are quite grateful, but many don't then carry out any correction to their trees