WELCOME TO GENEALOGY FACTS

“Where It Is More Important to Have the Right Facts than to Be Right.”

UNIVERSITY OF GENEALOGY RESEARCH

Home ● Surnames ● Brick Walls ● University ● Resources ● FAQ ● Subscribe ● Submitting Research ● Donate

Gen 109 - Family Search - More Comments and Hints

Hint: Family Search has many different ways to skin a cat. The following is but one way to use it. Play with it an see how you want to use it. The following instructions are fairly basic. The Family Search help screen is very helpful should you need further instructions.

Working diligently in the Family Tree section of www.familysearch.org is extremely rewarding. Reviewing your entire family tree, including collateral descendants, and cleaning up your family lines based upon the research of others and my own research has surprising dividends. You will learn things and hone your skills immensely.

Please take the time to review your family tree, be it big or small. You are the expert of your own lines. Please share your expertise. Spend a little time questioning the names of wives that are un-sourced. You may find a lot of errors there and far more pure speculation.

A Comment on Ancestry

1.         Ancestry Records are Great.

2.         Ancestry Family Trees often are flat out Wrong. Ancestry makes it easy, too easy, to copy sources and trees into your own tree. Ancestry has no method to correct the mistakes of others, so they get copied over and over and over again. Over time these mistakes begin to look like facts which they are not. Family Tree is a wiki and tens of thousands of users are constantly refining its accuracy into one shared Family Tree.

3.         Take the time to fix what you know is wrong in Family Tree and document why you are correct. I guarantee you will reap hidden rewards. In fixing the mistakes of others and revisiting your own conclusions, you will make many important discoveries.

Quick Hints

Indices Are Still Very Incomplete and Subject to Human Error

4.         Missing a Census or other record - Go find it (This will require you to read the Census line by line) and manually link it.

Don’t Believe Everything You Read

5.         Family Tree relies entirely on user input. Much of the data started with older sometimes unreliable research. It is getting more finely tuned year by year. Do not be afraid to correct errors.

6.         Doubt middle names, unless sourced.

7.         Doubt the wives maiden names (a lot) unless there is a marriage record or some other proof.

8.         Doubt moves from one county to another unless you have some proof.

9.         Doubt dates of birth (ages) unless you can find some proof in 1850+ Census records or other proof. Most years of birth from older records are from a series of estimates built up over years, which can be wildly inaccurate.

Good housekeeping

10.       Clean up place names (county not exist when event occurred).

11.       Review the Time Line. Are the places and dates in continuity, or do they jump all over the place. Fix the places that you can.

12.       Merge out all duplicate ID #’s.

13.       Look at the Sources and review the attachments.

14.       Use the Search Record function and attach more records.

15.       If dates or places have a red ! next to them, fix them.

16.       Look at each person in a family and review each for duplicates.

17.       Marriages are often repeated too many times. You can edit a marriage record and delete the duplicates.

Merge Technique

18.       Merge out the least informative ID # (In most cases, you can switch positions and control which ID survives).

Find

19.       Spouses names help out a lot (even more than dates or places) when trying to find a person that is already entered in Family Tree.

Attaching Records

•          Include links to pre 1850 census even if only to the head of the household

•          There is no save to the attach process. Once you make an attachment, it is saved until you detach it. When you are done simply back out (will not undo the attachment) or close the window.

•          You can change people on the matching screen. The matching screen works on family units. You might spot in-laws. Change the focus person to the in-law and make the match.

•          Marriage records and census records with in laws require you to switch focus person.

Switch the Focus Person

This takes a little time to get comfortable with, but is very important. When you are attaching a record to people, the people may be part of an extended family. To get everyone attached often requires you to switch the focus person. Let us say you find a marriage record with both spouses and both of their sets of parents. The first part is easy, i.e. attach each spouse. Attaching the parents of the primary spouse (the name you found the marriage under) is easy. You open the parent list in the upper right corner. But what about the parents of the other spouse. To do that you need to go to the right side of the blue bar (Selected Person and Spouse) and click on the Change arrow. Then choose the other spouse. Then when you click on the parent list in the upper right you will see that persons parents or a place to add them. Once you have everyone attached you can back out and exit that attachment screen.

Hint: The same procedure applies to extended family in census records.

Hint: Sometimes you have to Change both the left side and the right side of the Blue Bar.

Time Line

•          Don’t forget the Time Line. The Time Line often has suggested records to link, especially in the 20th century.

Record Search

•          Estimate + or - 5 years on birth or death dates. If unsure of the date, + or - 10 years.

•          Doubt middle names and initials.

•          Search under a woman’s maiden and married name.

•          If cannot find husband, try wife or children.

Look under the hood

When you buy a car, you look under the hood and check things out. Otherwise a fool and his money are soon parted. The same is true in genealogy. Don’t be tricked by a family tree that is gorgeous, without looking between the branches. In the context of Family Search - Family Tree, I mean for you to actually look at the sources. Make sure the sources support the summary for each person. Sometimes they don’t! Most importantly, review the attachments. If there is something wrong, most likely one or more people in the source may be left unattached. Look at the time line. Is it consistent as to locations, or does it jump all over the place. (And, yes, sometimes people move back to where they came from, but it is not often.) Read the comments, and review the changes, especially if there are warring egos. Often the summary for each person is incomplete. The sources may have specific dates, locations, middle names, alternate names, etc. that got dropped off in the complex process of assembling so much data. Make edits and comments as are appropriate. Move on with caution. You get the picture.

Remember Our Deceased Relatives

Do you have any family members that were born after 1900 and have subsequently died. Of course you do. Please help Family Search - Family Tree keep up to date by entering the date and location of their death into Family Tree, or at least the simple fact that they are deceased. Family Tree has information through 1940 and sometimes beyond. For privacy reasons, no source is linked to a person until it is confirmed they are deceased. Many sources are linked to a deceased person appearing in the source record, but remain unlinked as to other people appearing in the source that are not confirmed as being deceased. If you confirm they are deceased, then the source can be linked to their family tree and they can be “seen.” I have a selfish motive here. I have found the more sources you attach, the more sources Family Tree finds. So updating the deceased and attaching sources to them, may reveal even more sources.

What to Do When Two Different People Have Been Merged in Error

Family Search - Family Tree. If you find that two people have been merged with another person where their files are mixed, separating them is very tricky. I find it easiest to leave the files merged. First review the sources carefully and figure out which goes with each person. Recreate the person with the least number of sources. Make good notes on each source so you can find them again. Detach the ones you want to move, Then reattach them to the person you just recreated. Please make copious notes and comments. Send me a private message if you have any problems or have any questions. I will be glad to try to help out.

Mission Statement ● Copyright ● Genealogy Standards ● Comment on Slavery ● Site Map ● Privacy ● Contact Us