I have been a member of ancestry.com for several years now. When I signed up, I thought it was the best and easiest way to get all of my information all in one place. Now I'm realizing that not only was I right, but thousands of other people thought so too. Which is great. To a point.
I have been able to connect with a few long lost cousins who are also researching our ancestors and have been able to provide me with information that I didn't already have. While it's awesome to have this kind of instant connection with people you're related to, I'm also finding it very difficult to manage my tree at this point. I have, at last count, over 3000 people in this tree and it just keeps growing. The information I get when I click those little shaky leaves inevitably adds 2-10 people. At first it can be so exciting to amass a collection of relatives that large, but then when you get to looking at it, that's not really the case.
You see, I am someone who wants to be able to prove a claim. When I say that King Henry VIII is my 1st cousin 15 times removed, I want to be able to also show where that information came from and have a verifiable source. It's all fine and dandy that the information I got from other people on Ancestry says that, but I want real proof.
I have found that too often, the trees on Ancestry are filled with absurd suppositions that make no sense at all. For a father and son with the same name to marry a mother and daughter with the same name is unlikely but I've seen it documented in a tree. It's too easy to click those little shaky leaves and just take what others have said to be true and add it to your tree. Especially when there are many other trees that say the same thing. Problem is, where did the original information come from? I don't know anyone out there who can honestly tell me that they know the names of all 64 of their gr-gr-gr-gr-gr-grandparents. Every gr- doubles the number before it and there are approximately 3 generations per 100 years or so.
With that being said, there would have to be proof for each one of these names to be accepted as being one of my ancestors. My biggest problem now is sorting back through all the junk to get back to what is actually factual information. The process of creating a spreadsheet and entering the information I have already on these people has proven to be a tedious task and it's one that I'd gladly ignore given the opportunity.
When I started this journey on Ancestry, I was just like everyone else and I clicked those little leaves with anticipation and excitement. Now I kick myself because I have to go back through and clean up what I could have done right from the beginning. My advice to everyone out there who's just starting out actually comes from another blogger. Take it slowly. Get the information for one person at a time and try to get as much as you can before going on to the next person. Time is not of the essence when you are dealing with people who are not alive anymore. They aren't going anywhere. If you hit a wall and need a break, make sure you've documented everything and everywhere you've looked so that when you come back to them later, you don't have to start all over.
Well, that's my rant for tonight. Ancestry is a great resource so if you have it, use it wisely. It will save you from the headache I'm dealing with now.
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