Why is no effort made by those who use Ancestry trees as a source to name that source for others to research?

Question

When a profile has only the ancestry code for the source it means nothing to those of us who review those sources.  I have Ancestry trees and cannot get to them and because i now use Wikitree so all may read and learn without a cost.  The sources are out there and can be used freely and being available on these profiles one can render more information about that particular person and their biography.

Answer 1

When ever I use a source from Ancestry I always show the "Original" source info and list the important facts from it.

Comments

Me three.

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Thank you.

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I also do that Mike.

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Thanks for the BA Cheryl.

The way I see it is if a source is added it should list - in addition to the actual source - the info that would be important from that source - Names, Dates, Places ... If it has a link - great , but as we all know a link can be broken if a website goes down or it restructures.

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Mike, I agree - I give credit to Ancestry because that is where I found the source, but I do not link it there. I put all of the information needed - just like you say. I am working on my 2nd great grandfather, and I cannot find census on him on Family Search, but ancestry has 2 of them.

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Me too.  

If I see a record such as a baptism record on a website, I list the baptism record itself (name and location of the church and date of baptism).  

That way, it is possible to find the record on any of the hundreds (I'm exagerating) of paid or free websites that may have that information, and it is even possible for someone to visit the actual church.

If I only listed the original website, if that website is down, or behind a paywall, others can't see it.

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Someone at WikiTree told me about how you can use the info on the Ancestry Census to find the record on FamilySearch, which was probably just incorrectly indexed.  Go to FamilySearch "Search Records" and on the right, where it says find a Collection, start typing "United States Census" and it will drop down a list of Census collections.  Click on the year you want and on the next page, go all the way to the bottom to where it says "View Images in This Collection," and click on the field just below that says "Browse through ##### images.  Then it will ask for State, County, then maybe Township or City, sometimes District.  Use the location info from the Ancestry records.  When you get to the microfilm copies, look for the image with the page number or dwelling/family number that matches the Ancestry record.  Once you find the right page that lists the correct person/family, look at the bottom for the Information Tab which if you click on it, should show the citation for the page.  You can just add the name to it or (since it's kind of long and ugly) just use the info to create a regular FamilySearch Census record citation linked to the microfilm image.

This sounds kind of complicated but once you do a few, it gets easier and eventually is very quick and easy.

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Mike, for some reason, your star was gone, so I selected it again. I don't know how that happened, and I double checked to make sure it wasn't awarded to anyone else.

Have a blessed day!

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Thanks Cheryl

Answer 2

Someone once edited one of my profiles, to show Ancestry sources for marriage and baptism. I couldnt get to them through the pay wall. I soon reverted them to what I once had that was freely available.

Comments

Dave - I feel you on that one - Why would someone take a perfectly good source citation and then make it more restrictive like that. I could see adding the link to the Ancestry source below as a alternate view, but deleting the perfectly good original makes no sense.

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Me too, Mike and Dave.

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Me three.  Although I have Ancestry, it is a pain in the $W&**% even for me to find information from those links, which for the most part are expired or plainly not functioning.  It is better to list the original source information with the actual data text in the citation as much as possible and add a link for where the information was accessed on Ancestry knowing that the link will go bad at some point.  FamilySearch shares many of the same databases anyway.  Their site is better for citation links when you can locate it.

Answer 3

I use Ancestry a lot, mainly because they often have sources I can’t find anywhere else. Having said that, I am well aware that many folks here do not have access to those Ancestry records, so I have been adding as many freely accessible links to Ancestry as possible.

If there is anything you want me to look up, feel free to ask. Myself, or I'm sure another Wikitree member, will do their best to help out.  

Comments

Thank you.

Answer 4

All you have to do is pay your fee and you can add as many people as you want at Ancestry.com, whether or not you have any idea if the person existed, or the information you provide is correct.
Just this week I have run across two profiles from that site that list sources, but the individual is not actually anywhere in the source.
So....be suspicious.

Comments

That is so true - Or they end up combining entirely separate families into one just because the names are the same. Its so annoying.

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Ran into this with the Howell family that had two families intermarried.  It was a mess.

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But unfortunately that also happens here on WikiTree!  It's not the site that's the problem.  I've often looked at data and profiles people add and thought to myself "what were they thinking?" That obviously can't be right.  Not that I haven't made mistakes myself...just not that obvious.

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Dare I say, "Caveat Source-ator?"

Answer 5

Is it considered heresy to add that the same goes for citing Richardson? It's not available here apart from purchase.

Comments

I agree, haven't you a spare £250? 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/0806317507/ref=mw_dp_olp?ie=UTF8&condition=all

His works are said to be a reliable secondary source yet there are only a couple of university libraries  in this country (UK) that have purchased  copies of his works ( There are many more universities have that have  courses in  British/Englsh medieval history)

I don't think it's heresy, I think that referencing it  without mentioning  the  primary sources used by Richardson is not helpful .

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I suspect you won't find it in many libraries because it's not considered scholarly enough.  For instance I've never come across a review of any of his works in an academic journal.

I have contemplated buying some of his volumes, but it seems relatively impossible from Australia, and I'm always put off by the fact that he doesn't include any inline citations.

In any case there are often discussions of new findings in the soc.genealogy.medieval discussion group. However Richardson does at times cite sources I  haven't come across before and that has been really useful.

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I know it's a chunk of cash.  I use G2G tagging "lookup" to ask the forum members for a citation when I know one could be found.  It's a little harder when you don't even have access to the Anderson indices.

Answer 6

I suspect the answer is that what you are seeing are often gedcom uploads.  That's how they come in, and even when people want to improve their sourcing, it takes time.

Comments

That is true in many cases but it still is a issue with many other profiles. They will just say - Ancestry Family Tree, Ancestry.com Birth Record, Or just a link that tells nothing and that may or may not work.

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I'm sure that's true though I don't recall running into it myself. Nevertheless, I'd rather have a crappy source than none at all.  Some people just don't have the time, or don't want to take the time, to do things right.  The same is true on Ancestry, by the way.  Many people post documents for which they have not provided the source.  But I'd rather have a clue than nothing.

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OR they don't like history and aren't interested in genealogy per se, but only linking to some royal/pioneer/hero.

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As a wise WikiTreer once told me (and maybe he had to say it more than once!), you have to take the good with the bad.  It's a great free website.  There are means of correcting errors.

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Yes it is.  Errors can be fixed and with Ancestry that is another situation.

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But on Ancestry it doesn't matter.  You can make your tree as perfect as you wish.  What other people do isn't your problem.

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Oops! That “hiding” you post was an accident, Julie. Sorry!

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8-9 years.  Worked on one today created 2011.  This is where I thought was quantity vs quality.

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I am not completely free of guilt here, but I am trying to mend my ways and am slowly resourcing anything marked "Ancestry Family Tree" or even LDS Family Tree files.

Answer 7

Because Ancestry isnt about 'Real' Geonalogy. Its about making money. They provide loads of records, and really are not concerned how people use thyem...as long as they get the money.

Comments

There are also some serious genealogists on Ancestry.  I have made many valuable contacts there over the years and found a lot of useful information.  Also, they have the largest user base of any genealogy website as well as the largest user base of DNA tests.  And a huge archive of records.

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They have spent a lot of time and money to create that fantastic database.  I would never blame Ancestry for the mess; I blame users who really aren't interested in accuracy.

Family Search is free because much of the work is done by volunteers, which is also why there are fewer records.  It, too, has its problems, as does Wikitree.

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I definitely agree with your last statement.  FamilySearch turned me off to one-tree websites for several years because when I began setting up a tree, in just a few days I found someone had changed a record of a very close relative and I had no way to find the source.

WikiTree is, in my opinion, far superior to FamilySearch as a shared tree.  FamilySearch also has its uses, though, because they have records that Ancestry does not, and they are free.

I see my own genealogy work as always being done on more than one website, because none has everything.

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Dave, I would have to agree with Julie about ancestry. I have been a member for several years. It depends how serious you are when checking the hints that are thrown your way. You can accept them all, or you can really read them and throw out the ones that don't match your ancestor.

Another thing I like about ancestry is you can actually run into relatives and find pictures of your ancestors that you would never have found anywhere else.

I have made lifelong friends with relatives from being on ancestry.

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Yes, they are money grabbing (#_)%#(*#Y@.  However, they do have real information, too, if you have the patience to wade the muck.  10-20 years ago, all of this information was a painful rootsweb search of disjointed garble.  If you were lucky and descended from a Mormon ancestor, you could fight the Microfiche upstream for snipits.  Ancestry came along with a better user interface, a built-in gedcom file maker, and connected databases.  It was a homespun dream for those of us who cannot journey to larger genealogical repositories.  It was also very heady to be able to "copy" the family tree records of those who seemed to have it.

Even though my genealogical mentor warned me to source every person at least 3 times from the best records around, I ran through the Ancestry fields like a hungry sheeple, taking everything I could.  When the dust cleared, I had a tree filled with people who either didn't exist, or existed, but were not actually related.  I moved to a gedcom program on my personal computer and started over again.  At least not everyone in the first 4 generations was wrong.  It has been a long battle uphill, though. Now, I drill down and source things.  I also joined WikiTree.  I prefer a more academic approach, as this is really at its core history which requires other eyes to check our work.

So, yeah, but go slowly, save everything on your hard drive, multiple sources, and stay away from "WorldTree" sources.