Have you seen this Ancestory ad?

[csziggy]

56. The user has to know how to do research

You don't EVER rely on other people's information.

I use Ancestry to get scans of original documents to verify my research into family history. If I reach a brick wall I might look at other people's trees to check out what records they have to see if they have found something I missed. Sometimes that can help, more often I find a heap of garbage.

While I am an amateur genealogist I have plenty of experience - I helped my Mom with her research in the 1960s, and digitized the records from both parents' sides. My current project is to scan all the old documentation that has been held out of sight in my family's hands and to get that and the hundreds of family photos online. Now we have inherited my mother in laws' research and cache of family photos and documents and my husband is scanning those.

My father's great grandfather was doing family research in the 1870s - we have a letter from his cousin discussing the problems caused when their great grandfather changed the spelling of his last name. Because my grandmother had his research she never bothered with such modern documents as census or deeds though her great uncle the county judge did obtain every will with that last name in the county they came from in New York.

I know the problems with the trees on Ancestry.com - one of my branches has a string of Aaron Harlans. There are at least four or five of them, not a one with a Sr, Jr or III after their names. So many of the trees on Ancestry have them,their wives and their children hopelessly entangled it is amazing.

The new problem is with DNA results - while I trust the science, I don't always trust the deductions made from the results. I have an ancestor whose father we've never verified. Most people think they know who the father is and that his second wife is the mother. I was recently contacted by someone who is descended from the second wife and her first husband. Apparently our DNA shows a link and that was the only common element he could find. Problem is, we're talking six generations back and he has not fully researched his tree and what he has researched is not documented. I don't trust his results as verification for this parentage for my ancestor.