Building a Family Tree you can Trust - Part II - Hints

Avoiding Genealogical Pitfalls

In the previous post, we explored how the Genealogical Proof Standard (GPS) provides a structured, evidence-based approach to ensuring our genealogical research is accurate, and how it is the gold standard for allowing us to reach accurate and sound conclusions in our research. Here, we are going to have a look at one pitfall that is easy to avoid and will contribute further to our genealogical search, that being an over-reliance, or complete reliance on Ancestry's Hints and Suggested Ancestors. Collaborative genealogy is certainly a wonderful thing, but it comes with risks. User-created trees are often put together by people who are just as eager to build their family history as you are—but that doesn’t mean they’ve done their homework, or are interested in taking the time to do the proper research necessary. Mistakes in others’ research can quickly become your own, and without proper verification, you could be building your tree on a shaky foundation. 

The issue often comes down to sourcing—or the lack of it. When user-created trees rely on other user-created trees, guesswork, incomplete information, or even wishful thinking and outright fabrications, the results can be misleading. What looks like a solid connection between you and a set of ancestors could actually be an error, and if you adopt it without verification, that mistake becomes part of your family story.

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First though, it should be noted that Ancestry's Hints and user's trees can indeed be useful, and may even provide you with items that you would not have gotten otherwise, for example, family pictures, bibles or heirlooms that are in the hands of distant cousins, or records that are held in collections you would not have thought to search in. It can also be fun and productive to reach out to the distant cousins that have made those trees and converse with them; more than once have I connected with increasingly distant cousins (3rd, 4th, even 5th cousins), and received bits of personal information about our ancestors, "origin" stories passed down which have not been retained orally by my branch of the family, and even stories about my ancestors themselves that would never be found in the written records, or in newspapers. Of course, like all family stories, they should be treated with appropriate caution, oral histories and accounts are affected by "Chinese Whispers", imperfect memories, or even wilful modifications over generations, but they can still add splashes of colour to those ancestors whose lives and personalities we know little about. 

It's for this reason that Hints can be useful and productive in our ongoing research, but before you go ahead and accept that Hint, make sure to take the time to confirm that the Hint actually is relevant to our family. If you read Ancestry's own article about how they decide which Hints to suggest to you, you'll notice that the way they do this is by comparing what others have put in their own trees, and as we've seen, these trees are often unreliable at best. Just because a Hint appears doesn't mean it's relevant to us—and that's where your own research skills come in. For instance, you may get a Hint suggesting that 'John Smith' from an entirely different county or area is your ancestor—because many other users have simply made that leap without stopping to verify. Now, that John Smith could have moved to a different area, but this could also just be a Hint that is incorrect. This is why a reasonably exhaustive search, and analysis and evaluation of evidence, as outlined in the GPS, is important; it will allow you to reach a sound conclusion. Without further research, you could add that unrelated John Smith to your tree, skewing your future research and conclusions.

Not taking the time to properly research and verify can lead to disappointing results: I once had to gently point out to someone on Ancestry that they had just copied my tree and added my Gibson ancestors onto their own, even though our Gibsons were from entirely different areas, and of no relation. Unfortunately, by the time I notified them of this, they had already spent a lot of money on buying Birth, Marriage and Death certificates, along with Old Parish Registers, all on a family that wasn't even theirs! So even though clicking away at the Hints and Suggested Ancestors is fast, and feels exciting and productive, we can see that there can be huge monetary and time benefits in taking the time to do our research correctly in the first place, and that includes sifting through the dirt to find those Hints that are hidden gems.

Even if a user-made tree seems to be very accurate, has explanatory notes and conclusions, and cites and links to their sources that allowed them to reach these conclusions, we will still want to cross-reference and verify everything before we add anything they have done to our own trees, and that will prevent us from copying information over prematurely.

Relying on hints and user-created trees may seem like an easy shortcut, but it often leads to mistakes, misinformation, and disappointment. By doing your own research, cross-referencing records, and applying the Genealogical Proof Standard, you can create a family tree that’s grounded in truth. After all, genealogy is about discovering your real family history—not someone else’s guesses.

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Ready to build a family tree that is on solid ground? If you want guidance in applying the GPS or help verifying those tricky Hints, don't hesitate to get in touch! Luke Gibson is a professional genealogist in Scotland, and a member of the Association for Professional Genealogists, and the Scottish Genealogy Network.