Are You Guilty of Butchering Your Family Tree?

What a question, but a valid one! Are you guilty of not documenting your family tree? Documentation is a significant step when adding ancestors to the tree. It is not a time to be lazy or state that you’ll take care of it later because later never arrives and things tend to get in the way. Remember, the idea is to recognize who your ancestors were and getting to know the challenges they faced during an era that was not stable for many.

So why am I writing this post? Well, I have lost count on the number of trees where people add a name, no region, just a place or even that is left off. It is as if to say “cannot be bothered”.

Our ancestors went through many epidemics, wars, human rights violations, and catastrophes to make it possible for each of us to be here. Now is not the time to take shortcuts, they earned their right to be recognized by each of us by providing the truth of what they went through and would truly appreciate it if you don’t tell tall stories about them.

So, if you are not sure of an individual, then adding them before verifying their connection is a disservice to any hard work that you or anyone before you put into connecting the family within the tree. If you are researching an individual, I recommend creating a separate tree called “Researching Individuals” and make the tree private and not searchable if you have your tree on Ancestry. This is to ensure people do not copy errors because no one ever thinks of coming back and checking for corrections nor do they validate what they found. Unfortunately, many people have public trees available and it just exacerbates the problem.

When adding people to your tree, ensure that every entry makes sense and is thoroughly researched. I know that when it comes to my African roots, it requires further research beyond records because getting it right means I am respecting the most horrible fate any human could face; slavery. So I am writing this post because I think it is time for people to understand what it means to document your tree.

We are going to start with…

AN ANCESTRY TREE IS NOT A SOURCE!!!

There! I said it! Many come to believe that because it appears on multiple trees that it must be factual. I have had individuals request that I review their tree, they are so proud of their work. When I asked if it is sourced, I get a resonating yes. However, when I take a look at the tree, I wind up feeling like I’m on a family tree rollercoaster ride as I wind up navigating family tree after family tree. I am dizzy from it and no documentation to be found for these ancestors. If documentation exists, most of the time the document doesn’t belong to the ancestor in question.

Well, today I will share how I go about it, we all need to do better with our documentation. Step 1, I have Ancestry’s tree hints turned off for other trees as the majority of trees on Ancestry have lots of false information. Some of it is not intentional but others are outright tall stories. While they might provide some hints, here is why you shouldn’t.

About 15 years ago, I decided to move my tree back to Ancestry as everyone was advising that there was a lot of information with plenty of resources available. I had removed it from Ancestry many years prior as there were no records for Puerto Rico. Upon uploading my tree, gullible me started adding individuals with their entire family as the hints seemed to be so accurate. NOT!!!

Hey, it looked good and sounded great. My thought process interacting with these trees was, “Hey, everyone else has it and they are providing dates so it must be true!”. It was also due to a lack of online resource records and my thought was, “Well someone went to the archives and is sharing information.” Let’s pause there for a moment.

This is a major false perception that will lead you to stumble and not find the truth or any records. Many people will slap in a date just to make their tree look cleaner. Others will do so just to make people go down the wrong path. And then you have the nutty individual that likes to claim their ability to trace their lines back to Adam and Eve. Huge sigh here.

After realizing all the junk I added, I wound up deleting my tree with over 10,000 people and started over on my own. I now have a healthy thriving tree with approximately 7,500 family members with plenty of documentation. It requires checking to ensure duplicate people are not already on the tree as endogamy is a huge issue with many families. I also tend to review information a second, third, or fourth time as there are always clues that can be missed or misinterpreted previously.

Now we all know that there are people out there that we see in public and will come up to you with nonsense to get you to believe them. A perfect example and very true story I would like to share during my time living in Brooklyn recently…

There is a man in the Flatbush area of Brooklyn who singles out anyone walking down Nostrand, Rogers, and Flatbush Avenues with a cell phone to their ear. He purposely bumps into you and drops a “broken” bottle or cup with supposed liquor. He proceeds to claim that you owe him and attempts to guilt you into going to the liquor store and buying him a bottle. Yes, some have been suckered into it, while others have not. Not this NYC chik!

So in sharing this, why are you letting another tree con you into thinking their information is correct when there are zero sources? Yes, we all get it that we would like to add life to our ancestor but lets add the right life.

The rule of thumb are as follows if you insist on copying from another person’s tree.

• Write down the information electronically, I use Microsoft OneNote.
  • Plenty of free options out there.
• Write to the tree owner and ask for a source from the person. If they cannot provide other than another tree, DO NOT add the individual to your tree! Add individual to your “Research Tree”
  • The tree owner is NOT A SOURCE!
• Look for other sources like Familysearch if you do not have a paid account on Ancestry.
  • FamilySearch is free for everyone to use.
• If Ancestry provides you with a document hint, it does not make it factual.
  • How do you know that this is your ancestor? Names are commonly repeated.
• Have you read any documents or historical text for the time period?
  • It is critical to understand the era your ancestors lived in for the region.
• If the person is 100 years old, it is likely fake. Most people didn’t live past 70 years of age in the past. The keyword is “most”.
• If the 100 year old person is giving birth, again, this goes back to my prior statements on the liquor guy in Brooklyn. You’ve been had!

Let’s Get Started with Creating a Source!

• The process of documenting your tree involves researching and documentation which can include sources that are not from Ancestry. A “Source” is a document, book, an index, or person that is related to the fact you are entering into the tree.
• Great sources such as:
  • University press books
  • Images from books
  • References within books – look at them
  • FamilySearch
  • Country Archives

Ancestry offers video lessons on YouTube on how to go about it. Check out one of their videos below.

Another great idea is that I save documents on my PC. I start with a folder for a country or island. An example, I have one for Puerto Rico. I then create subfolders with municipalities in Puerto Rico. Within the municipalities, I then create additional folders on types of files such as:

• Baptisms
• Confirmations
• Marriages
• Deaths
• Wills
• Dispensations
• Government Archives

When I create a file from an image I name it as follows…

Jose Nieves Nunez Libro 4B Folio 162v 123456 Image 181

So to explain this, I start with the person’s name (Jose Nieves Nunez), the book number (Libro 4), book type (B=Baptisms), page (Folio 162v), film number (123456), and finally the image number (181).

I also use the same input with when entering information into my tree with dates but with added content. This way if I need information, I know where I can locate the information.

I hope this post helps many of you with documentation. Feel free to add how you document below in comments to help others.