Ancetry ProTools Are Improving But the Elite Tree Badge Is Deceiving

I'm striving for 0 people without any documentation. When Ancestry rolled out “Top Trees” in ProTools, I had 66 individuals needing another look, and I've been slowly whittling away at them.

I often add an unknown male spouse’s surname based on Social Security notes or wives listed in obits with a married name. Less frequently, the information comes from a will. On rare occasions, it’s to add a parent one generation back so I can add siblings of the known person in my tree (again, usually from obits). I also add unknown children (though where possible, I've been documenting those based on 1900 and 1910 census records showing number of children born and number of living children).

I’ve been working through those 66 people, and I’m pleased to say I have it down to 21! I figured I'd have the same 9.9 Top Tree rating until I reached 0. Imagine my surprise when my badge changed to Elite! Less than 1% of those in my tree have no sources (actually 8/10ths of 1% for any other OCD folks out there.)

Now, I’m down to the more difficult ones. A few are spouses where the marriage apparently didn’t last long they're proving problematic to find. Even my living people search tricks aren’t doing me much good. None of the names in question are showing up as family or associates. Some are several generations back and I may only have a given name with no surname, or a surname with various iterations and I'm not sure of the correct one yet. My progress on this task has slowed significantly, but hasn't come to halt yet. ProTools gives me a goal, and I like the challenge.

It’s important to remember, the badge on an Ancestry tree currently does not in any way indicate accuracy. It’s simply a reflection of whether there's at least one piece of documentation. It doesn't mean the documentation is correct. In the future, I hope it will reflect those researchers who try hard to make sure their trees are really accurate. Right now, it would be very easy for someone to have this badge but still have significant errors in their tree. For me, I know I tried to make sure I’m very accurate (or at least as accurate as I believe I can be), so it’s meaningful to me personally even if others shouldn't necessarily take it at face value. As always, don't simply copy the work of another (no matter what you may believe about the accuracy of their tree). Do the research yourself and make sure everything lines up. At some point, you'll be very glad you took the time to do so.

I'm finding Ancestry's ProTools is improving little by little. With the added filtering now available in Tree Checker, and the advantage of the new DNA feature showing how your shared matches are related to each other, the cost is becoming more palatable. And for those who've been invited to work on the trees of others, I understand your ProTools will work in those trees as well. But if you have ProTools and someone you invite to work on your tree does not have them, they do not "inherit" them when working in your tree. They only work for you. I hope Ancestry continues to roll out even more features in the future. I wasn't a fan when the first limited features were released, but I'm starting to warm up to ProTools now!