Genealogy Chat

Hi, I've been pointed in the direction of the IGI site via familysearch.org and have "happened" upon several hundred years worth of ancestry which sounds plausible to me, however, having read mixed reviews of how trustworthy this site is I'm a little sceptical. The info. I've found is under a pedigree resource file, can anyone enlighten me as to what this is? - as you may have guessed I'm a bit new to this and with so much info. out there it's like I've jumped into the ocean and I'm looking for a few life rafts!

also, if there are any other decent (reasonable trustworthy) sites that may be useful starting points, I'd be grateful to hear about them (as I'm sure many others would too).

Thanks in advance,
Caroline.x

Pedigree Resource File are submitted entries on Familysearch. I don't trust any submitted entries at all. I just use the entries that are extracted from parish records.

Like any family tree one sees on the 'net, one should treat it with caution. However, unlike most trees one sees on the 'net, one typically only sees little twigs of these trees, and not the whole thing, so it's a bit hard to judge the general quality of the research behind the tree, and even the best trees can contain errors.

The info is useful, however. You can often guess where it came from (e.g., an exact place and date of death and an approximate year of birth was probably gotten from a d.cert or grave marker) which does indicate how you can verify it. Actually, knowing that the info is probably out there somewhere is very useful. The majority of the info is accurate, but you never know if you're in that majority situation.

Read Tips for Newbies and get a sub to ancestry.co.uk