ProTools Got It Very Wrong

I've been using Ancestry ProTools for some time now. There are quite a few features I really like, and a few I don't really care for. But all things considered, I generally find them to be useful. I use ProTools every couple of days for filtering and watching for errors via Tree Checker.

But today, I encountered an issue where ProTools Tree Checker appears to be blatantly wrong. And it's not just alerting me to a potential duplicate or unsourced person. It clearly indicates 2 residence event errors, where no errors seem to exist.

The person in question is James Hitchcock. Due to how one of my 3rd great grandfathers married twice - to sisters, and his second wife subsequently married James, it makes him an interesting connection. He's either the husband of the wife of my 3rd great grandfather (per Ancestry), or the husband of my 4th great aunt (per FTM). I like these interesting and intricate connections. But it's not the root of the problem. In fact, I can't find the problem at all!

The important date here is date of death, in 1859. ProTools is telling me I have 2 residence events well after his death. One event is more than 10 years past the date, and the other a whopping 120 years!

I set off to search for where I went wrong. Surely, I must have entered something incorrectly. I've made the mistake of adding a 1900's date instead of an 1800's date before. On occasion, I've found where I've transposed a couple of numbers. Usually I catch these myself when I see any fact listed after the death and burial dates and I quickly fix them. I figured it would be a similar case here. But it wasn't! I have the following dated residence events:

• 04 Jul 1813
• Bet. 25 Mar1832-10 Apr 1832
• Bef. 28 May 1849
• 01 Jun 1850

There are no other residence events for this person. In fact, here's a snip of the end of his timeline. You can clearly see there's no residence fact after date of death. And none of the residence events shown above contain any date after his death. I checked every single fact entered for him (for good measure)  and none are a concern.

I'm having a hard time understanding how ProTools could get this so wrong. A simple date comparison (or even calculation) should be a no brainer for the algorithms. Generally speaking, computers do math very well. Certainly, in the case of duplicates, algorithms are saying "Hey! There's matching data here. Maybe you want to look at this." I don't expect ProTools to do anything more in the case of duplicates than alert there might be an issue. And when it comes to missing citations or only referencing another tree - those are very clear cut too. Equally as clear cut should be a date calculation. I use similar dates all the time and none of those are showing as errors.

I've gone ahead and hidden both of these notifications, since there's no option to say "Ancestry you're wrong!" and delete them. Hidden will have to do. Just like hints, it's up to each researcher to determine if the errors suggested by ProTools are really errors or not. But it does trouble me. I'm going to watch carefully for a bit. If this becomes a recurring issue, it would become annoying very quickly (and there are enough mildly annoying notifications on Ancestry already). I'm trying hard to give ProTools the benefit of the doubt here. I'm going to chalk it up to a random hiccup - they happen. If you've seen any issues like this in your own tree, please share in the comments. It's always helpful to know if others are seeing similar glitches.

Questions I Forgot to Ask

There are questions I forgot to ask while I still had the chance. This morning, I can't stop thinking about how my ancestors might have celebrated Easter, Christmas and other holidays. I have precious few relatives who might have heard the stories, and even fewer who might have participated. There's a gaping hole in my family knowledge I may never be able to fill.

I'm certain all sides of the family likely dressed their many children in their Sunday clothes (the ones with the fewest holes or less mended) and marched them off for Sunday service. But what did they do when they came home?

Candy was probably a luxury they couldn't afford. With chicken coops on the farms, and eggs being a needed commodity, did they hide eggs for the children? There was likely no extra money to hide coins or other treasures. Meals were hard enough to come by, and I know some of my ancestors ate rabbit regularly (the Easter Bunny surely wouldn't have stepped foot on the farms!) 

So what did they do? Was it just business as usual taking care of the many tasks associated with having big families? Were there any traditions they followed? Did they maybe visit a grandparent for a big meal? I don't have the chance to ask these questions now. If you're fortunate enough to still have family living, make a call or stop by and ask while you can. Take notes, and write the stories down, so they won't be lost on future generations.  

Image by Janet Meyer from Pixabay