If you are like me, the Energizer Bunny, you keep going and going, and before you know it, your tree is over 25,000! What I can say about my tree is that I started with only knowing up to my great-grandparents and now I am going back in some lineages to the 1600’s. Now that my tree is established, I have to remember to take time to shake my branches for new clues
You might be thinking, why do I need to revisit my tree? It’s perfect! If you are like me, it is never perfect. Let’s dig deeper and discuss a few examples why we need to shake our branches.
New Records
One of the obvious reasons you want to revisit ancestors has to do with how ancestry companies are always updating and adding new records. With new records, you might finally find the missing piece to one of your many puzzles or dead ends. If your tree is small, then you will have an easier time tackling this, with me I am sort of lead to a person. Maybe somebody sent me an email asking about an ancestor and that spurs me to revisit that person or branch in my tree. I, personally, am not regimented when it comes to revisiting my ancestors. I just do it when I feel like it. There is no right or wrong way to work on your tree. Do what is best for you is my motto.
When Revisiting Your Ancestor:
Check hints for your ancestor: My tree is on Ancestry®, and they are adding new hints all the time to my ancestors. I checked the “All Hints” for all my trees and my total hints is 89,465. To view all hints for your entire tree on Ancestry there is a leaf icon that is located at the top right of the page if using a desktop view. Just double click the icon to see all hint stats.
Now you can understand why I am not rushing to work all my hints. I do not like to chase after just hints in a tree, but rather work steadily on a line and do a thorough job by focusing on the person in the line.
Doing it this way makes it a lot easier not to get confused with the information presented in a hint to the direct ancestor I am focusing on.
I usually go one by one down the list of hints listed for my ancestor I am revisiting. The hint must meet all my criteria for it to be added to my tree. So many people believe that, because Ancestry gives you a hint, it must be right. You must always do your due diligence on any hints.
My Typical Preferences:
My typical preference is to ignore any user-submitted information in the form of photos, document or stories.
I like my work to be original that I find and add and not just copy it from other trees. Don’t get me wrong, I will look at the information and then, if the hint is true, I will find the documents on my own. In the beginning, I added portrait photos from other trees, but I slowly became aware that I had a problem. How do I know for sure that this is the correct portrait photo to this person? My close cousin that is on my maternal lines and I have shared our family photos where we mail each other copies of the photos and then discussed who we recognized. Because we know each other and have knowledge about the relatives, I then add the photo. But I find with people I don’t know, there are often mistakes or errors.
The other problem is when photos are for someone that lived before photography was invented. Is the portrait photo a copy from an oil painting? For me to keep my tree as accurate as possible, I now do not copy photos of people that unknown people have put on Ancestry. So, now most of the time my profile ancestor photos will be a document of significance (will, death/birth record or obit)
Eventually, any photos of people that I added before my criteria change will be reexamined against my new standards and, if it doesn’t meet them, I will delete it.
Your Skills Are Better:
When I first started out, I would spend hours and I mean hours on learning how to find records. Just like in my other post about getting up at 5 am to go to the pickle patch I used this same routine, but I had to be at my day job by 8 a.m. Some days, it was hard to go to work when I was on a hot lead. No, I never played hooky from work. But when the weekend came, I did not want to be disturbed – I wanted to be in my genealogy world, at home or at the Family History Center. I can now say that after spending so much time and with some help from cousins I have met on Ancestry or my colleagues at the Family History Center I am now able to read the majority of the wills or parish records, something which many can’t do.
Even though ancestry companies have added new hints, that doesn’t mean that is all the new information that is out there for your ancestors. With your honed skills, you should again research starting on your chosen ancestry company where your tree is housed. For me, after my main ancestry company, I will go to my other favorites like FamilySearch. While I volunteer at the FamilySearch History Center, I use the premium websites that are free for any patron to access. Some other premium websites are Findmypast, Ancestry, and My Heritage to name a few. I usually will find a few more documents to add to my tree.
With your super sleuth skills, what once took you a long time to find a particular document is now an easy process to locate.
Wrap-up
It doesn’t matter if your tree is large or small, every year the ancestry companies will add new records. It is up to you how you want to update your tree. Remember, how I do it might not be the best for you. You are in the driver’s seat in regard to how you want your family tree to be, just remember that when you are shaking your branches for new clues.
If You:
- Have genealogy question/mystery, please privately email me by clicking this contact link: https://www.nancydrugenealogy.com/contact-2/
- Would like to read more articles about genealogy, please visit my homepage: https://www.nancydrugenealogy.com/.
- Would like to explore genealogy please visit FamilySearch to start your tree for free.
Happy Sleuthing,
