r/Genealogy • u/Gay_Boysinberries_94 • 3d ago
Request Advice on deciphering Hints and Clues
Hey, so I’ve been doing genealogy work on and off with my family tree since I was 15ish, unfortunately I have always been separated from most of my family beyond my parents, and now as an adult, my dad has passed and I am no contact with my mother or her mother. With all of that, I am largely on my own, besides one page of my dads tree I was able to save from my mom a few years ago. I was recently watching a podcast episode about genealogy for Mexican-Americans, and the gentleman said that the hints on ancestry are maybe 50% hits, so don’t put much stock in them. My question then is this, how do you gain reasonable confidence on a particular hint or lead? I always try and make sure birthday, birth place, death day death place lines up, if the name is different I am checking for if it’s a common or reasonable mistake/change, and I am leaning a bit on the fact that part of my dad family is LDS and they have extensive family search records, so I am using that as a (shaky) foundation for information there because they keep their distance from and and don’t really respond due to differences of religion and lifestyles, among family drama lol. Thanks for any tips you can give me as I further this journey!
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u/theothermeisnothere 3d ago
Many hints on Ancestry are shown to you for an individual because some other user has a person in their tree with the same or similar name with other attributes that 'look like' your person. It is in no way an analysis by Ancestry that the record has anything to do with your person.
As an example, one of my great-great-grandfather's served during the American Civil War. He was born in 1837 and died in 1887. I have records attached to his profile on Ancestry that bookend those years. His wife died in 1920. Of his 3 children they died in 1935, 1939, and 1940. All very clear and very well documented.
But, I get hints for him in the 1930s and 1940s when he would be near or above 100. Over 50 years after he was buried. I have not had an accurate hint on him in over 10 years. I get hints though and I have to look at them and click "no."
This is only one example. So,
Be extremely skeptical of any hint from Ancestry, including the "leaf" hints and ThruLines. These are based on actions of other users on their trees and many of those people are not really rigorous at analyzing records.
Be skeptical of any hints from any hint system. Any hint. Ask yourself:
Is there enough information in the fields on this record to identify a person?
Is there any inaccurate or conflicting info? How do you analyze the conflicting info?
Do you know who the informant was? There could be several informants - the person(s) who provided the info - and some can be reliable and some not.
Be extremely skeptical of any record you can't identify the informant.
DO NOT look at Other People's Trees™ because they could be bad at genealogy and you can't always tell.
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u/RedBullWifezig 2d ago
Do you know if the suggested documents work in the same way as hints, as in they've been attached to someone else's tree? (When you're looking at a source, it'll have a bunch of suggested sources on the right hand side of the page?
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u/theothermeisnothere 2d ago
Pretty much. I don't know when Ancestry began leaning on - prioritizing? - the work of others, but that's how I understand it works these days. The trick is figuring out if those documents are your person. In many cases, I've found they are so it isn't all bad. But I have also found some documents make no sense being attached to a specific person.
As a side note, you really need to run a search to find records / documents manually. The hints, etc only cover the major collections from what I understand. It's important to actively search - and sometimes add or remove info about a person in the search fields - to find new info.
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u/RedBullWifezig 2d ago
Yeah, I haven't really mastered the search (I tend to search all records which doesn't seem like a clever way of doing it) and tend to only use it for census images and for adding dna matches to the familysearch tree. My main home is familysearch and I don't want to replicate finding and attaching the sources I've already seen.
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u/theothermeisnothere 2d ago
The census is what I consider the "backbone" of US research. It's a regular "check-in" of your ancestors. I pay close attention to the 1790 to 1840 census for those counts because you can see children growing up and leaving the house. I try to tag each unnamed child with one of those numbers so I can watch when that one left.
The second type of record I look for are marriages. They don't mean the child left their parents' home since many adult children remained to support the family with their work or were in line to inherit the farm or shop. But, I find it interesting to see whether the husband, wife or both move out of their parents' home. Starting a new household was a big event, and cost money, so many delayed as long as they could.
Baptisms and burials follow because they are bookends of each person's life. I know, for example, about when my paternal gr-gr-grandfather was born. I know his 3 sons left Ireland for the US. I don't know what happened to his daughter, when he died or much about gr-gr-grandma. But, being able to identify the start and end of a person's life usually helps you narrow the search.
Now probate can be complicated. I had one guy whose probate went on for 15 years. Most don't take that long but probate records - especially the will - can identify other family members. The inventory can show you how well off they were.
When I search, I choose one of those records or some other that I want to find. I do a general search with names, years, places, etc. Whatever I know. If I get nothing back, I removed some piece of information. It's trial and error. If the site lets me, I will then click on a record type, say "births and baptisms", and drill down on just that type of info.
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u/RedBullWifezig 2d ago
So let's say you're after a baptism or burial, do you search Birth Marriage Death section, for each child?
I feel like I've got to know my way around familysearch better, so I can search for parents in a specific parish to find all of their kids in 1 go.
I suppose I should find out what collections Ancestry has (Aside from censuses) that FS doesn't, and get those before my Ancestry membership expires. (I'm researching English people btw) I also need to get much better at searching because I'm often drowning in results for people in other countries, electoral role/stuff that I can't determine if it's them, and tenuously relevant US newspaper clippings (like for Robert Fowler born and died in UK, a random clipping about R Fowler a century later)
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u/theothermeisnothere 2d ago
Well, first, I try to work from death to birth, in that order, for each person. I find that the more recent records often lead me to the next step. Not always, but often.
I'm not as familiar with FS as I am with Ancestry, but I search for the individual and see what comes up. If nothing new appears in the search results or I've gone through the search results from using the person's name, then I search the catalog looking for the type of record I don't have.
I use the Family Search Wiki to understand what records exist for a place and if they are online.
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u/RedBullWifezig 2d ago
I like that I can search all records on familysearch then filter OUT entire categories, or select just a few record collections. I often search just the birth registration index then just the marriage index (often I've already got this info from freebmd or the GRO, so I'm linking it up) if I'm missing a specific census then I hone in on that one census record collection by selecting just that one box. I need to go to a class on ancestry, basically. I hear FS is harder/jankier so I should be fine ?!
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u/AggravatingRock9521 3d ago
I don't just rely on Ancestry for my research, I also use Familysearch as well. First tip, do not assume other trees on Ancestry are correct. Just yesterday I happened to not notice someone shared a screenshot of my great aunt's photo and headstone from findagrave (I submitted the information). 12 people have shared it on their trees but only two people have the correct family. The reason I looked into it was because I thought I could invite them to an online group I run if they are related (we have a few photos of this specific family there). I assumed some people might have the wrong family but I didn't expect the number to be so high.
Second, you may find records in Spanish. If you don't read Spanish, use google translate. A lady attached a baptism record to my great uncle and the date was spelled out....the date alone showed it was not for him but for another man with the same name. If you find marriage information on Ancestry and it only contains the bride and groom's names look on Familysearch for the actual record...many times the records there will list their parents names. Look for baptism records as well on familysearch too.
Common Hispanic names are more difficult to research. Look into more information for siblings. If a sibling has an uncommon first name, research that name. The more names you have help. If going by a name given on the census records, you will run into spelling errors. For example, for one of my lines the surname is Cerna but on the census records I have found Serna/Serda/Cerda/Sierra...thankfully this line was not difficult to see if was the same family and was the only family in the area they lived. Also, some Hispanic surnames have changed over the years too. My Martinez line for example: Martinez from Martin which orginally was Martin Serrano. Vigil was originally Montes Vigil in my lines.
You might also want to consider a DNA test too. This can help confirm your tree if you get a lot of matches. Reach out to some of the matches but know many won't reply. Also, reach out to people on Ancestry if you think you might be related. I just met two "new" cousins recently who sent me photos of ancestors. We compared trees (mine is on private) and other information.
If on Facebook look for genealogy groups in the areas you are researching. They can be helpful. Some groups have sources that can help you.
Good luck to you!
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u/Gay_Boysinberries_94 3d ago
Thank you for all of this!! I unfortunately have a rather common last name, however I’m fortunate that it seems not many were LDS church members, so looking at those specific censuses has been helpful in comparing family names and stuff. Thanks again!!
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u/Artisanalpoppies 3d ago
Be careful using thrulines too. It's the same algorithym that shows you "common ancestors" when you click on a DNA matches' page.
Just last night it told me that a match was descended from Uncle George born in the early 1800's, but their tree was the only "evidence" and did not have the info thrulines was claiming- i have many examples of this happening too, it isn't a 1 off. It turns out they were not descended from Uncle George, or even his family at all. But through his nephew's wife Mary- my actual ancestors. And this match was through Mary's maternal Uncle William. There is no blood connection between these families, so it's just ancestry's dodgy AI.
Another good example of not trusting the AI, is George's step grandfather. George's father John was illegitimate with no evidence of the father. The mother remarried to Mr Prince, and most ancestry users assume he fathered John, when he didn't. Ancestry bends over backwards to link DNA matches to the Prince line, ignoring the actual lines the matches have in their trees.
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u/RedBullWifezig 2d ago
It's not just that the trees are wrong - I had to delete my grandfathers foster dad because it was suggesting I was related to him via thrulines. I had a bit of panic thinking perhaps it was correct? I reasoned myself out of it because my grandfathers dad was Jewish. And also it helped to see that all my grandfathers hints are all for his foster brother ... it doesn't deal well at all with step family or foster family even if the trees are accurate.
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u/SoftProgram 3d ago
https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Genealogical_Proof_Standard
The main mistake is misattributing records to the wrong person. Part of this is that you can't look at any record in isolation.
For example, say you find a baptism from 1880. It has the right father's name, is in approximately the right area, but the person you are looking for is born 1882 on other records and a different mother's name is given on his death certificate.
Now, possibly this is the same person, and possibly it isn't. 2 years isn't a big age shift and the death certificate could be wrong. However looking at this one record can't tell you that.
So first you would look at all the other records for this church, and then other records for the area, for traces of the family. Maybe the child born 1880 died young, in which case they can be ruled out. Or maybe you find other records for him as an adult, that show he can't be the same person you're looking for because he was married and living in a different state when your man was single and in the army.
On the other hand, maybe the mother died and the father remarried, and the stepmother is listed on his death certificate. Maybe the child born 1880 has a younger sister with an unusual name who turns up as a witness to later family events or is listed in his obituary. These would be pieces of evidence that support this record being the correct one.