The Value in Other Member Trees

A lot of people don't find any value in hints from other member trees and ignore them completely. I totally agree not all trees are well researched. Nothing is as frustrating as a tree with no sources at all, or where the only record is a to other member trees hints. But some people do research well, and those trees can be valuable sources of information. 

Consider the tree with only other member trees as records. On Ancestry.com, you can delve down to see the individual member trees the hint came from. If one of those member trees has a record for other member trees, you can continue to "dive down" a few times and you just might find some nugget in one of those other trees. I've had times where I look thru 4-5 levels of member tree hints and then suddenly find an elusive record.

MyHeritage family tree hints aren't as informative and I personally find them extremely frustrating and a lot less valuable. But to be fair, I have found photos in trees on MyHeritage I haven't been able to locate anywhere else. MyHeritage family trees are generally not terribly helpful in my research experience, but when my back is up against a brick wall, I'm willing to look at them. 

I've also noticed well researched trees tend to pop up in my Ancestry.com hints more often. Over time, I get familiar with the names of those trees. I have about 15 I see on a regular basis. 4-5 of those I've referenced enough (and found them to be accurate) to consider them trusted sources of information. I will occasionally add a record and reference the other member tree directly as a trusted source. The others are simply research tools. In general, member trees help me verify family members I already know such as parents, siblings, children, and other spouses. Kind of like a "double check" of what I've found. 

I personally don't research the families of people who married into my family, but I do make notes of their family members in the event I ever want to look further, or find a reason to add them to my tree later. By copying and saving the family members from other member trees to my notes, it saves me a lot of time culling the information on my own. Should I decide to add those people later, I would definitely go back and look for additional proof. I don't worry about copying this information because it's only for my notes and on Ancestry.com notes are not public.

Most often, on Ancestry.com, the first tree in the member hint has the most resources and is likely the most reliable (but don't trust blindly)! Always be skeptical of new names and only add people to your tree if you've found some other supporting documentation to back them up beyond a member tree. Just because they saved a hint doesn't make it accurate. Be sure to review any records and make the determination for yourself. I've started and scrapped a lot of trees because I trusted what I found in other member trees, only to realize later it was a huge blunder. Do your own research is a very wise piece of advice, one I wish I'd heeded sooner.

I NEVER save the facts associated with these types of hints on Ancestry.com,. I simply attach the record without selecting any of the checkboxes, and I NEVER use the hints to add new people to my tree. All I'm doing is saving the hint so I can go back to those other user trees if I need to. Ancestry.com has a couple other record collections I treat the same way. The relatively newly acquired Geneanet Community Trees, and the North America Family Histories come to mind. I don't necessarily trust the information, but if it verifies what I've already confirmed, I do attach the hints as reference without saving any new facts. As for MyHeritage family trees, I don't attach those. I use them as nothing more than a springboard for more research.

I totally understand why some users don't want to place any stock in other member trees. It's a very personal choice. There are as many opinions on this as there are on the public vs. private tree debate. I choose to approach with caution and use as a reference. If I ever want to refer to these records in the future, I have them available on the person page and I don't have to remember to go check Undecided or Ignored hints. What works for me may not work for you, and that's totally ok! You may choose not to use these hints at all, but if you do, please take the time to consider exactly what you're saving to your tree and remember how quickly information (accurate or not) can populate across other member trees.

Image by Patrisia Novianti from Pixabay