Genealogy Chat

On several occasions I have received a hot match from a member with 86,000+ (yes, that is correct) relatives on her tree. Is it really worthwhile to attempt to trawl thro a tree this size as I would like to see some of my ancestors which she obviously has? Also. I have left the computer on for over 30 mins but this is still not long enough to download.

There is a search facility on all trees, put in your rellies name and when it comes up you can choose to see their decendants or ancestors
Regards
L

You need to make sure that you click on Immediate Family View. Full Tree views NEVER work for larger trees - mine started to fail when my tree had only 200 names.

Thanks Leclerc and Tracey - I have now discovered how to do what I wanted. Will not bother wasting a lot of time time trying to search someone else's huge tree again. Have also just realised that the person concerned had taken info off my tree anyway and the computer had matched us.

Diann

Diann

Given that it has taken me 3 years to have 1,500 in my tree, I would be very dubious about someone with 86,000 people. That is the equilent of 67 years of searching unless he or she is a lot more productive than me.

It is dead easy to find a possible father and assume it is correct. Far more difficult to trace through his children to see if they are likely, and even more difficult to trace their deaths and see if they are buried in the same graves.

Be sceptical about this person.

Margaret

Hi Margaret - it was good to have your views on this. I have just been back and looked at the trees I have access to and the other high numbers are 6,324, 6,964 and 11,740. I've only been tracing my tree for a few months and have reached 71 so don't know what to make of such an enormous tree.

Diann

Hi this is a different Margaret again, but I have been searching for 3 years, and am up to about 1800 names, and that includes the tree of my cousin's husband which I did as a birthday present for her, and of my daughter's fiance, yet to be married, so basically three families, not one. And there are still lot of people in there that I am not 100% certain off. I would be definitely wary of anyone with more that 5,000, and even that is going some.

Your best bet is usally someone with about 800+, enough to get a grip on their tree but not so many that it is make-believe. But don't ignore mine either at around 1800.

Regards

Margaret

The main thing is to make contact and ask for sources. Lots of people, including me, use other websites/programmes for the details of their trees and only put the basic information on GR in the hope of getting information about missing branches.

Whenever I'm contacted about people in my tree, if there's a match I give access to my Ancestry tree which has all the detail.

I've been doing my tree for three years. I have approximately 3,300 names. I have spent hundreds of hours hard work and research on it, at times literally blood, sweat and toil and of course much money spent on the way.

Now if someone wants to right off my tree because it is too big..well sad, but their loss not mine. I don't think you can judge a tree on its size. Just because a tree with more than, 300, 600, 1000 (take your pick) is confusing or unmanagable for you, doesn't mean it is so for everyone else. Some with small trees of 12 would be poppycock, some with 12,000 likewise. Vice versa they could both be equally well researched. I don't think size is a good indicator at all. Have a bit of dialogue with the tree owner, that will be a far more accurate way of judging if they know what they're on about and do their research well. Judge them on that.

Richard

I agree size does not matter, its the quality that counts - excuse me!

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Many thanks to those of you have replied on this matter. Yes, I can see that contacting the person and asking for info is the best way and not to go trawling thro many thousands of names.

Diann

MGHS

I think you missed my point, but not to matter

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