Ancestry Public Trees versus Private - a new debate

I would be careful in making that Statement PhoebeW, it could be misconstrued, and certainly you may be guilty of the very thing you blame on Ancestry. Ancestry is many things to many people but even its worst detractors (perhaps bar one other lady on this Forum) shy away from accusing them of disseminating 'misinformation'.

Ancestry is an immensely big world wide data-base platform provided for the use of public subscribers allowing them the means to store and manage their Family Trees and decide how they may be viewed by others. Ancestry's only 'drive' -apart from making money which they certainly do with great success - is to maintain the database and provide the necessary search algorithms and means for Tree owners to contact one another. Any misinformation therefore, by definition, comes from within the Trees themselves and even that is open to interpretation on the basis of one man's (or woman's) meat is another's poison. He or (as political correctness requires) She who is without sin cast the first stone.

 

Yes, I believe that is most likely the reason why -even with my fairly infrequent need to make Private Tree contacts - I get a poor response, when a more or less identical themed message to a Public Tree owner, brings a higher success rate. (Here I clearly do not mean in numbers but percentages).

Yes again, I agree it does make our approaches different, but want to make it clear I am just as interested as the next family historian in Cousin relationships - after all I joined Lost Cousins did I not - but it is NOT an initial driving force nor does it influence my reason for making contacts; it is by way of an added bonus should it occur.

I am just as content to find a 'related by marriage' connection, something you down play as second league on the LC site, as when you challenge when the ratio of 'Marriage' to 'Blood' threatens to creep up, or heaven forbid, overtake! This is one of the reasons why I temporarily called a halt to adding new Ancestors as certainly the majority now are relationships by marriage. As soon as |I add more it will not be long before Marriage outnumbers Blood. This of course threatens the LC "raison d'etre" to locate Lost Cousins, but in truth causes me little bother.

So, in a nutshell, this is how we differ, but ...Vive la difference!

 

Not at all. I think Ancestry's systems are encouraging inaccuracies in its users' trees. Ancestry has many strengths and I have subscribed for many years. I also recommend it to others (with some qualifications). But they have put systems in place that harvest entries from members' trees without checking and that offer them up to other members to accept at the click of a button. They know that this functionality is spreading errors and inaccuracies across users' trees and they continue to develop more of the same. I think they have a responsibility to ensure that their own systems are not encouraging inaccuracies.

 

I would find it annoying if I did a surname search on my DNA matches and came up with a list of 50 matches all from Private Trees. Surely the Ancestry system only works if the vast majority of trees are public.

 

Hi palfamily, You are worried about Private Trees on Ancestry re DNA matches yet you don't mention those with no tree at all which most of us find more frustrating. At least with a Private Tree you know the match has done some research. You can only hope someone with no tree has a tree elsewhere. However I think in most cases they haven't done any family history research and have merely taken a DNA test for ethnicity reasons (which Ancestry promotes over finding new relatives or family tree information). Ancestry recently sent me a survey and I castigated them for placing too much emphasis on ethnicity rather than family history. I suspect they do this because it is easy money for them and the DNA purchasers don't have to anything apart from spit in a tube!

 

Yes FamilyHistoryGal I do find the number of people with no trees very frustrating. I’m surprised by the number there actually are. I have around 200 4th cousin matches and just over 25% have no trees, also several have a tree with only 2 or 3 people. I put it down to unwanted birthday presents or people finding fh research more difficult than they thought. I shall be interested to see what happens after Xmas.

 

Is there a quick way to jump to the last page of a search list? I can only seem to do it one page at a time.

 

I love a good circular argument! I was writing my initial post in a word document to make sure I said what I wanted to say and didn't waffle, but alas school duties (my full time job!) has got in the way (it's the end of the year... so marking, marking and more marking... except when you're getting the 12s to do revision.)

So I will attempt a precis of what I was originally going to say.

I use both Private and Public trees, although my biggest tree (and I would hope I'm not just a name collector) is my Public one. I like to think that people can do what I did, and learn to sort the information that Ancestry provides in order to become a better researcher. I admit to have learnt that way - often pruning my tree to remove erroneous information - for example an incorrect marriage when I ordered the death entries for a couple of ancestors that revealed the married names of two of their daughters. I also recently pruned 50 odd people off my tree after an inquiry as to whether I was related to a particular set of people... the information wasn't credible enough, so I deleted everyone and pruned it back to what it was, and then replied to the person to state I wasn't sure. I am fully aware that just because the chance is there someone people will ignore it, after all I teach teenagers.

Often I find that some Ancestry trees can help to add siblings/children to a tree, but I prefer any additions to be matched to records and often they are. If they're too unbelievable - had a child born in South America in the middle of siblings born in Amsterdam, I simply remove them as incorrect.

There are a lot of credible public trees out there, and an equal amount of people who simply add whatever Ancestry offers. I disagree with those who think that Ancestry hints just offer dross - usually (depending of course on the amount of information added) the initial hints are usually correct, once past the initial set of hints, it gets more and more inaccurate, or duplicates information you already have from a different set of data.

I will concur with Bob about the messages, I think I receive more messages from people with public trees than I do from private - that's not to say that I don't receive messages from people with private trees - the first cousin I emailed through a DNA link had a private tree (and is also on LostCousins somewhere) and happily told me when and where we were related, but I don't have many conversations with that particular cousin - and there's no real sharing of resources (I am not complaining, simply stating fact), most definitely not the sorts that I have had with other members I have contacted.

At this point I have been gifted more contacts through Ancestry than LostCousins (although I'm sure that will change), and definitely more cousin links through Ancestry at this point in time, both with and without DNA. I admit to not always contacting people I have Ancestry links with, although sometimes I don't get an answer that contains enough information. But I am always happy to do what I can even for those who are not blood related - I have happily shared information with others who are both cousin and marriage links alike through what I have, although I don't think I necessarily have that much! I generally start my messages with a query about being a possible relative - stating where I think it is if I have an approximate idea myself, and I let it go from there - I have never asked for access to someone else's tree although I have been gifted access to a couple of other trees, one for the purpose of sharing research that I don't have, and the other to see if we can figure out where we are DNA related as currently there are no shared names or links.

As for DNA links - I agree, "no tree" is the most frustrating response, especially if they don't have any links with "shared matches" you can identify. I have access to DNA tests for both my parents and my paternal grandmother (as I have previously stated) and so there is an inordinate amount of matches to dig through - including some second cousin links.

I think I ended up waffling, but I responded!

 

I would not suggest that I am JUST as content to find a 'related by marriage' connection but being realistic, I believe that 'by marriage' connections are bound to be more numerous than blood relations unless specific steps are taken to avoid that happening. I am surprised that other members do not find themselves in that position. Initially, we research our direct ancestors and then follow Peter's advice to cast the net wider to include more distant relations. In doing so, the greater number of non-blood relatives will become apparent. Peter suggests that the bulk of those need not be recorded at LostCousins but I am loathe to ignore uncovered data that might be useful in making a connection. If such a match does not appear to be productive then the parties need not continue to converse.

I believe that most researchers need to be more realistic in their expectations from what may result from their involvement with LostCousins. Consider the similar situation where someone is given a free lottery ticket each week and only needs to supply a set of appropriate numbers and to submit the entry for evaluation, (sound familiar?). Would any such recipient consider terminating the arrangement simply because they have never won a major prize? Particularly if they have only ever won small prizes and now they have won yet another minor amount. We should all be thankful for any help that we can get. The main motivation behind LostCousins may be to find living cousins but sometimes contact with 'nearly cousins' can be more productive and (I believe) should not be ignored.

I have just asked Peter to send a reminder to a member to whom I sent a LC contact request about a month ago and have not received any reply. There were several matches identified from the 1881 census where my blood relative (2C2R) was married to the elder brother of the other member's GGF. I also found many further individuals from that extended family in the 1911 census but no matches resulted so presumably the other member does not have ready access to that census via a subscription. I am only related by marriage but I could potentially supply information from my tree to fill in gaps in the other member's tree, if only he/she would respond.

Bob, please do not stop adding new ancestor census references at LC for fear of making 'by marriage' relatives top heavy. I am sure that your extensive experience and tree content could be very useful to less experienced members, who may even be able to reciprocate.

 

Once again you reach a conclusion that, as far as I am concerned, does not lead to anyone being better of with Private Tree; if anything quite the opposite.

 

Thank you Bryman and of course I will be returning to add more Ancestors in due time. As you succinctly explain in the rest of your post this will make the Blood/Marriage relationship show unfavourably (to Peter at any rate). Most of my bloodline has been covered -a few stragglers to go perhaps - so inevitably this will bring Marriage relationships to the fore. I too believe they should be added regardless of the outcome.

 

That was no 'waffle' jorghes, quite a refreshing post of clarity - and as someone who nudged me to make my case - the other was Family History Gal - I was eager to see what you had to say.

How refreshing to hear your biggest Tree is Public and you (and many others of course) are not "name collectors". I resent that accusation just as people who live in (so called) 'bad' districts resent being tarred with the same brush, because of the activities of a few. There are good and bad (and I dare say ugly) in all quarters and Ancestry is no different; it is just learning to sort out which is which that holds my interest. The more you do the better you get (no surprise there) and I concur that sometimes this means one has to retract or change information previously believed to be factual.

If I was religious I would say AMEN to that.

And that one gets two AMENS. I love checking on Ancestor page 'Hints' (and those emailed to me in quite some depth) and check on them all. Whilst you are right some hints duplicate information already given, others can be very rewarding and lead on to even better 'finds'. That is really where Ancestry scores hands down.

It is also true that I have discovered more cousins via Ancestry contacts (including those now found through DNA matching), than I have via LC. But as I said to Peter, finding cousins is not my prime motivation, but am pleased when it happens nevertheless

Good luck with your DNA research.