Genealogy Chat

If I find that I have matches with someone else, is it possible to link these trees in some way rather than adding hundreds of new relatives by hand? I'm new to this and would welcome some advice. Thanks, Jules

If the other person is in agreement you can swop Gedcoms.
You will need a tree program on your pc and merge them there.
Be warned it is very easy to make a hash of it.

Thanks so much for this. I'll get onto it. Sounds a bit ominous, but hopefully worth a try as this is a whole new branch of a tree and I don't fancy adding about 600 new family members!

beware too that the problem with wholesale "copying" from someone else's tree is that you will also copy any mistakes they have made, its better to copy bit by bit so that you can check their sources etc and be sure you are copying correct info

What is the point of just copying 600 or so names?
You need to do the research to make sure everything is correct, as far as you can verify it.
If you had not found the match, were you just going to stop, or are you actively looking for hundreds of relations, and are prepared to add them individually - if so, what is the problem?

I must run with Patricia on this. I would NEVER in a million years copy names from someone elses tree. Maybe if it were a very remote relative, and only a handful of names, I would do so, sourcing them all as "John Smith's Tree",

But anything more substantial, and I would make a note of it all (print it out), and research it all myself from scratch. The stuff would be a wonderful tool, but that is all. A tool.

Next week you might find someone with 3,000 names in their tree. Whoah!

Don't do it!

It might be my tree. I have researched fully 99% of my tree, but admit there is the odd bit that I haven't. You could be adding totally the wrong family to your tree. Don't do it.

Sometimes you are lucky and link with someone who has researched thoroughly. Purchasing certs, hours spent in record offices and can give you chapter and verse with confirmed sources.

Others will give you their own assumptions and guesswork or the assumptions and guesswork copied from another as fact....And the 'another' had copied it from someone else!

I would suggest only using their tree as a guide to further research unless they can 'dot the i(s) and cross the t(s)' in respect of sources.

Even then I would want to check for myself....But that's me :-)

Chris

Some of the comments on here are doing a huge disservice to those who take a lot of care and attention with compiling their tree.

Why is it that the immediate assumption is that the other members tree is a load of fiction? Yes it might be, but then again it might be a lot more accurate that your version.

Personally, I check all details against the census or BMD, as a minimum,, before I add it to my tree. But please don't assume everyone else's info has to be rubbish..

InspectorGreenPen

I don't think anyone was/is suggesting the other person's tree 'has to be load of rubbish'.

What they were suggesting was treating info supplied with caution and check for yourself that the info is correct.

I will hold my hand up to being led down a 'garden' path by someone I thought had a line 'tied up' by census and GRO index entries.

Fast forward a couple of years....Thanks to Ancestry's London Baptism, Marriage and Burial entries being put online.... My contact and I were able to research more fully which blew the original scenario 'out of the water'

Chris

To answer IGP, I hold up my hands and say I might not be the best researcher (and I am definitely sure that I have not recorded my sources thoroughly cos they are still on scraps of paper!).

But in the 5 or so years I have been on this trek and have made contact with perhaps two hundred people with the same families in their trees, I can count on one hand those whose trees have been as accurate as mine. That mainly results from the fact that I have bought certificates like they were going out of fashion. I was fortunate to have an inheritance I never expected and hubby and I shared it out, and mine has gone on this hobby (his has gone on a losing football team!). So every main person in my tree is fully certificated, and certificates have often thrown up some surprises. In addition, wherever I have had any doubt about a person, I've bought the certificate.

I don't expect everyone else to be so fortunate, and some have done an excellent job without spending the same amount as me, so I'm not doing anyone a disservice, just saying that unless you know that a person has researched fully, however good they are, don't assume they got it right.

Thanks to everyone for their words of caution! Might anyone recommend a program for editing and backing up on the computer as the only info that I have is that Ancestry isn't a good one? Thanks

I don't know much about the Ancestry facilities, or those of Genes Reunited. I think you'll find that most people have a "stand alone" tree on their own computers, and Family Tree Maker seems to be the first choice for most. I have that, it is a dead old version, maybe 2005, and I keep promising myself an upgrade, but to be honest the old version is serving me well still.

There are other programs. Try this link:

http://www.my-history.co.uk/

They sell a wide range of family tree programs.

There are also some free ones you can download, family search has one. I've tried it, and it seems to do a fairly good job.

Margaret

I couldn't buy certificates for each individual, the money isn't there. I do always check censuses, Family Search, BMDs as far as possible and indicate where I have. And if I am given access to other people's trees I give them as the origin, and if there are no further details I say "from xx's tree - no source given".

I started my tree from one that was researched about 1960 as a present from an uncle to my grandfather and it has turned out to be pretty accurate. There is one early ancestor I haven't been able to tie in, but with a substantial chunk of descendants - and as I hope to get more confirmation eventually I haven't deleted him, but pass on my reservations to anyone who wants my tree

I think the operative word is



CAUTION



be very cautious about adding names to your family tree, unless you have been able to check them out.



It may be a lot of work to add names singly .... but at least you will know that you have checked them as thoroughly as you possibly can




I can say this from personal experinece

................... there was a One Name Study Group on my father's family

That family is spread around the world now, but has been taken back at least as far as 1720 on the male side.

A cd was produced in about 2000, and given to all the people who attended a ONS Group Meeting

I got ahold of a copy of that cd in 2006 ................................. lo and behold


my father had disappeared

my brother was married to my mother, but about 30 years younger than her

and I was the child of my brother and my mother




The developer of the ONSG and of the cd was my second cousin, the grandchild of my fahter's oldest brother.

He allowed himself to be removed from the ONS Group rather than make corrections, or respond to me


I am still trying to get corrections made ...... but there must be a couple of hundred of those cds around, and I know of only one person who is now maintaining the family tree apart from myself. She has agreed to correct the information, but there is only so much that she can do


Think of how many wrong trees there must be!



sylvia