Seeing is it wasn’t all that long ago, this should be easy huh? Thing is, it has been such a whirlwind of experiences that, to be honest, it is all really blurring together. I feel your heart breaking for my dilemma. So I thought, and thought, and then the one lasting lesson hit me. The one I learned in my first few weeks.
The biggest discovery, that impacted all future research, was when I realized that not all trees online we were well researched. To be honest, I was really naive enough to figure that if someone published it they actually went through the effort of verifying it. Even if they had to go back and admit they were wrong, there was some sort of logical chain of events that brought them to the conclusions they published. This is one of the reasons that I made my Ancestry tree private. Really, I use it more as a sounding board and put all my leads, ideas, clues, etc. there. Yeah, I know, I could have multiple trees on my computer; a working tree and a published tree. However, I know myself well enough to know that right now there was no way I could keep 2 trees going. Even if it meant I wouldn’t be fed to a tank of piranhas it would be one of those things that would drive me crazy. Still learning here folks, learning quickly, but still behind the curve on a few things. Adding one more to-do on my list would make my mind explode.
That is why I love that people contact me when they want to know stuff from Ancestry. Those who are interested will take the time to ask. If you find an ancestor on it and want to correspond I am more than happy to do so. I didn’t want people to just blindly copy and paste (like I had seen on so many repeating misinformation and errors) without talking to me. Tell me which ancestor you want to know about and I will give it to you, with all my caveats laid out for you to peruse as well.
photo credit: Auntie P via photopin cc
I made the same mistake when I started researching a few years ago. I'm trying to clean up my (private) tree but it has been quite a process.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I should have really known better. I am always telling my oldest that you can't belive everything you read, especially if it is on the internet! Don't know what I was thinking to be honest. Call it over excitiment at the discovery!
ReplyDeleteI also made our ancestry tree private, with about 700 peeps on it so far . . . my reason was that my extended family is a bit skittish about being too "public." I made them all "Contributors," though, so that they can add any photos or stories & comments they want to. I'm the only one who gets to add the hard data, though.
ReplyDeleteTo be truthful, I haven't completely researched every single point. Too many points. But I still have hundreds & hundreds of little leaves waving at me with sources, and I'll plug away at that. Much of my recent info is word-of-mouth . . . don't you love it when your cousins can't remember what year their grandchildren were born?
Love your picture. Did you get that from istockphotos?
Yeah I have been thinking of making them contributors, but I have not got around to it yet. Sounds like a good way to stop bugging them to send me that picture again though. :)
ReplyDeleteAs for this photo (and many of the ones I use) I get them from a site that allows reproduction with citation. The photos are always cited on the bottom of the page, if not right under them. It is called photopin: http://photopin.com/