I keep my public tree on Ancestry.com. I know there are
other options, but Dad kept his tree there; and, when I took it over, it seemed
easiest to leave it there. I have learned a lot about “proper” genealogical
research since I began in earnest two years ago, though I still have a lot to
learn.
I want to write a book for my father this year about our
Scottish Muir ancestors since he didn’t have access to the information I do
today and doesn’t know much about them. His great great grandparents had 78
grand children so I have a LOT of records. As I started writing I quickly grew
frustrated because I was always opening the same record over and over to glean information. Each time I did, it seemed I learned something new from a
record I’d looked at several times before.
I finally stopped researching and writing and started
transcribing all the records as well as creating source citations for the
non-Ancestory.com information I had, which was most of it about the Muir
family.
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| My transcription of Robert Muir's birth registration |
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| Original remains of Robert Muir's birth registration |
We had a lovely conversation that evening and we were both
able to help each other. The only record she had found for her and my father’s
grandfather, Robert Muir (1875-1956), was a marriage record for his second
marriage to Elizabeth Fausz. On that record, Robert claimed to be 18 years old. But it was definitely the right Robert Muir.
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| Missouri marriage license for Robert Muir and Elizabeth Fausz found on Ancestry.com |
Because of that record, my newly discovered first cousin
once removed didn’t think he could have been married before and that Alice, my
grandmother, must have been his sister. She stopped researching in total
frustration because she couldn’t find any other records that supported those facts.
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| Robert Muir and Elizabeth Fausz on their wedding day on 26 Sep 1911 in St Louis, Missouri |
She had no idea her grandfather was born in Scotland, who
his parents were, and so on. My tree helped her make a breakthrough, especially
when she discovered we each had the same photo of Robert Muir and two unknown
people; and I was glad for that. What did I get? Photos! Lot’s of old photos of
Robert Muir and his second family…and one photo of my Dad at age 10 or 11 with his
maternal grandfather that was unknown to our family. What a find!
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| Robert Muir and my father taken in 1941 in Arlington, Virginia |
My small success was a result of always looking at tree
hints from other people. We hear so many horror stories about bad trees and
sloppy research and many are true. But I look anyway for clues to other
possible sources. And this time I got very lucky indeed!
Sorry about being a day late. I am apparently incapable of reading a calendar correctly! :blush:
ReplyDeleteHi Schalene - I look at tree hints through the Member Connect tab and I do make contact with other researchers. I don't copy tree hints to my tree though. I am so glad you had success in contacting your cousin.
ReplyDeleteAnne, that's so interesting. I use Member Connect to "connect" with people who share common ancestors, but I find the way Ancestry displays public tree hints easier to use when I am looking to see if they have source documents I haven't found. When I see such a source document, I open it up and determine whether it belongs to my ancestor. Once I am convinced that it does, I save the document to my tree. Then I stop and transcribe it before moving on. I never copy another Ancestry public tree to my ancestor as a source. I only use them as clues to source documents I might be missing.
DeleteHi Schalene, I agree it is trying to find the source documents that is useful. You can see them on the member connect screen and click though, evaluate and save as appropriate. There are of course member trees that have no sources attached but they have information worth following up on. For example a death date and then I use that hint to go in source if some verification of that death date - a gravestone, probate file, newspaper notice, death index .... The frustrating thing about member connect is clicking on somebody to "connect" doesn't let them know you have "connected". You need to write a message. I often do. I wonder though how many people have "connected" with me but not messaged me. I would love to know.
DeleteAnne, I agree. I would LOVE to see who has used Member Connect to connect with the people in my tree. It seems like such an obvious enhancement for Ancestry to make.
DeleteCongratulations on breaking down two sets of brick walls. Wise advice to not ignore info on those trees. And what wonderful photos! Win, win!
ReplyDeletePauleen, thanks! It was a very existing couple of days around here when I received all the old photos! Public trees are clues as are several other types of records including indexes. You have to make your own decisions about the source documents those trees include. But I might have gotten a bit snobbish about them and this experience changed that.
DeleteThanks, Carol.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations, Schalene, on your success, I do check regularly Members' Trees on Ancestry as sometimes you can pick up clues, which given the concerns over accuracy, I do try to follow up by seeking evidence (as Anne mentioned in her comment here). Unfortunately I find many of my messages to members go unanswered and iI wonder if contributors are no longer visiting the site. I suppose you win some, lose some!
ReplyDeleteI, too, am amazed by how often I do not hear back from people I message using Ancestry. Perhaps they were like me several years ago. I was researching my husband's Lithuanian and Austrian ancestors. I'd find something, hit a brick wall and stop. Every couple of years I'd try again and have a tiny bit more success. Now I check my home page to see the activity by other users related to the people in my tree. I'm usually messaging a couple of people a day after seeing that they've added records to a shared ancestor or copied something from my tree. Just the other day through one of those emails, a lovely newly discovered distant cousin sent me a photo of my 3X great grandfather's headstone! So I appreciate the "wins" and try not to get to frustrated at the "losses."
DeleteFinding the exact same photo in two people's collections provides some pwerful evidence of a connection, especially when you also have the provenance of the collections. A facility for finding matching photos AND recording the provenance (e.g. photo 1 was inheritied from person A who was decended from persons X, Y Z) would be fabulous, but don't think a really good solutions exists at present.
ReplyDeleteThere are likely a load more subtle clues in the type and format of the photos, and the composition of the collections, so lots more fun still to be had!
Schalene, I'm dropping in a little late just to say what a wonderful discovery. That photo of your dad and his grandfather is pure gold!
ReplyDelete