Ancestry Academy  > Education  >  Family Tree Clean Up

Summary

Learn from Crista Cowan, Ancestry Corporate Genealogist, who shares her extensive experience in genealogy, emphasizing the evolution of her skills over the years. The session focuses on common mistakes in family history research and offers guidance on how to rectify them.

Crista discusses the significance of starting a family tree correctly and the potential need to start over if foundational errors are discovered. She shares personal anecdotes to illustrate how misinformation can propagate through family trees, emphasizing the importance of verifying information rather than relying solely on family lore or unverified sources. Cowan advises making trees private and unsearchable if starting over, allowing for a more methodical approach to building a family tree. She stresses the importance of climbing one's own family tree rather than inadvertently adopting someone else's due to incorrect information.

The virtual event recording outlines four key steps for cleaning up a family tree: removing incorrect individuals, ensuring all individuals have supporting records, verifying that records pertain to the correct person, and utilizing Ancestry tools to identify and merge duplicate entries. Crista explains the importance of conducting a reasonably exhaustive search for records to ensure accuracy and avoid creating "Franken-people" by conflating records of different individuals. She also highlights the importance of viewing original record images to gather complete information and context.

Crista introduces Ancestry ProTools, which can help identify duplicates and logic errors in family trees. She explains how these tools can assist in maintaining a clean and accurate family tree by highlighting potential errors and providing a structured approach to resolving them. Throughout the session, Crista encourages participants to engage with their family history as a puzzle, piecing together accurate stories to honor their ancestors and pass on to future generations.