298 Pages

Each year I pay my Ancestry subscription so that I have the resources available at my fingertips whenever I have a question to answer.

I have been researching my tree for 30 years now and some of my research is very old and needs to be revisited. Whenever I see the shaky green leaves on Ancestry I tend to ignore them.  I have finally decided that I need to check out the hints that Ancestry keeps sending me - there are 298 pages of them!

298 Pages

I have decided to concentrate on the 228 pages containing 4546 Record Hints in the set because many of the hints from Member Trees are riddled with errors and may mislead me. If I ever manage to get through this lot I will take a look at the Member Trees. The Record Hints should be more reliable!

Only 228 Pages of Record Hints

One of the reasons for this new found zeal is that I want to identify my many DNA matches and  having details of  BDMs for collateral relatives will help in this regard. Previously I have concentrated on my direct line.

So what is my process?  I am a bit hit and miss in the way I access the hints but have decided that I will use the Sort by Last Name, I realise that I may never get to the end of the alphabet!

I have a copy of my tree on my Family Historian database open as I look at the hints. I look at each hint and find the individual in Family Historian, I will add the fact and source there if it is a new one to me plus download any related image to the individual in question's folder on my hard drive. I then add the source to my Private Tree on Ancestry. If I already have the source on Family Historian I omit that step and just add it to the Private Ancestry tree. My Ancestry tree may not exactly mirror my Family Historian tree but I can live with that. My Family Historian tree is my Master Tree.  I am selecting Ignore for those records that are obviously incorrect but am finding that sometimes Ancestry doesn't take any notice of my Ignores and subsequently reoffers the incorrect records, Grrr.

This is slow going but already in two evenings I have found several Baptism records that give me dates of birth for various ancestors, I have found a death for Mr GeniAus' Great-Grandmother (need to order certificate to make sure it is right), buried a few folk and have married off several distant cousins. These last ones are useful for my DNA matching.

It will be a long haul but at least I have started the journey and am getting more value from my Ancestry sub.

Just one small green leaf

Yesterday I wrote that I was having some "me research time" and looking at those little green leaves on Ancestry that I have been ignoring.

Well I didn't get past the first hint that was offered. For years I have wondered what happened to Ellen D'arcy, sister of my 2xGreat-Grandmother Elizabeth D'arcy. I knew that she married a Henry Holmes but that was all. My first green leaf directed me to a death notice for Helen Holmes (had I ever thought to search for a Helen?) which looked promising. I looked at the NSW BDM Indexes and found that the father mentioned in the index was named as Michael not John as expected but the deceased's age was close to the mark. I kept digging and found the marriage entry for Helen D'arcy and Henry Holmes. The time and location were right so I continued exploring in Ancestry, on Trove , Familysearch and the NSW BDM indexes. Yes, that little newspaper clipping was for my Ellen.

1903 'Family Notices', The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), 26 October, p. 6. , viewed 24 Feb 2018, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article14575312

My explorations on Ancestry took me to a Holmes tree that, although it had a mistakes, listed a number of descendants for one line of Ellen and Henry's children, these clues were of great assistance. I have since spent a few hours adding descendants to Ellen's tree using the online resources at my disposal. As Irish Catholics they were prolific breeders so I have quote a task ahead of me.

I am thrilled to have located this line as, I know having a few more cousin surnames in my tree will help me solve some more of my DNA matches.

Call me a cynic but I think that was a "first time lucky" hint. I wonder what else Ancestry has in store for me!

Not a Green Leaf in Sight

Just a few weeks ago I wrote about all the shaky green leaf hints that I had for my Ancestry private tree. Once I cleared these hints I deleted that tree that was waaaaay out of date and uploaded a new one.

Now I have a leafless tree. Every few days I go into Ancestry in case there is a little green leaf waving at me but in the three weeks since I planted that new tree on Ancestry it has remained leafless. It is spring down here in Australia and all the deciduous trees are sprouting new growth. I hope my Ancestry tree follows suit.

Why isn't my Ancestry tree leafy like the trees in my garden?

Green Leaves

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.