Decrapifying is my present household activity. I am trying to clean up and clear out some of the stuff we have accululated in over 40 years of marriage so that, in the not too distant future, we can relocate to a more modest residence.
Of course I can't do this all the time so I am doing some decrapifying in my genealogy space. I have been a member of Ancestry since the olden days and I can't remember when they introduced those shaky green leaves but I know that I have never taken any notice of them. So my first decrapyfying geneatask has been to get rid of those leaves - an interesting exercise.
The leaves seem to multiply overnight so that I am making very slow progress.
So many of the hints are for events that are already in my Ancestry private tree (a pruned down version of http://www.geniaus.net). Dera Ancestry, I'd rather have fewer hints that lead me to new information.
I can't understand why Ancestry throws up hints from foreign countries for people who were totally BMDed in Australia or England.
Over the years I have generously shared gedcom files with other people. I get all excited when a green leaf leads me to an ancestor on a shared tree and then get annoyed (with myself for prior sharing) when I find my info posted on someone's public tree. I keep my info up to date and correct my errors when I find them - these people don't!
I was pleased when one genie I contacted after being directed to her tree removed the misinformation there but she told me she had copied it from another tree........Deep breath.
In spite of my frustrations I have found some good leads to check out. Probably 1/25 of the leaves bear fruit for me. So I will attack my next 35 pages of hints tonight. I wonder how many I'll have in the morning.
Of course I can't do this all the time so I am doing some decrapifying in my genealogy space. I have been a member of Ancestry since the olden days and I can't remember when they introduced those shaky green leaves but I know that I have never taken any notice of them. So my first decrapyfying geneatask has been to get rid of those leaves - an interesting exercise.The leaves seem to multiply overnight so that I am making very slow progress. So many of the hints are for events that are already in my Ancestry private tree (a pruned down version of http://www.geniaus.net). Dera Ancestry, I'd rather have fewer hints that lead me to new information. I can't understand why Ancestry throws up hints from foreign countries for people who were totally BMDed in Australia or England. Over the years I have generously shared gedcom files with other people. I get all excited when a green leaf leads me to an ancestor on a shared tree and then get annoyed (with myself for prior sharing) when I find my info posted on someone's public tree. I keep my info up to date and correct my errors when I find them - these people don't! I was pleased when one genie I contacted after being directed to her tree removed the misinformation there but she told me she had copied it from another tree........Deep breath. In spite of my frustrations I have found some good leads to check out. Probably 1/25 of the leaves bear fruit for me. So I will attack my next 35 pages of hints tonight. I wonder how many I'll have in the morning.
Interesting points. I know people, by the thousands, have copied information from my descendant charts online at JGEN but how many have come back to catch up on the many updates and corrections that have been added over the years?
ReplyDeleteI have found it useful to turn off hints from other family trees. Reduces the number of green leaves. I prefer to look at other people's trees through the member connect button and only connect to those who appear to have done some research.
ReplyDeleteI have noticed more irrelevant leaves to do with very wrong country :( I think they have changed the algorithms.
I use Ancestry and I have my own website as well. How do you keep the two sites in sync and with your home offline tree as well?
ReplyDeleteI can so relate to your frustration at those leaves Jill. I haven't worked out how to get rid of them.
ReplyDeleteKylie, I don't bother with syncing the Ancestry tree - it's a pruned down one.
ReplyDeleteI sync my offline tree with the website every 2-4 weeks or when I have done lots of additions and amendments.It's a task that only takes a few minutes. Gedcom out - gedcom in, that's it.
As one who has never looked at the green leaves, I now have another task on my to do list. Wondering if I will discover something exciting! Thanks Jill for another thought provoking post.
ReplyDeleteSigh, they're never-ending, aren't they? When I'm working on a person I try to clear out the hints. Sometimes I'll just pick a database and work on hints from that database only. Other times I pick a last name and work on those folks, or try working from the oldest or the newest.
ReplyDeleteAs I said, never-ending.