Genealogy Chat

This got me thinking, which is the worst tree I've been sent.

Man marries a woman who is given her SiL's surname in error.
Produces a son A (true) who dies in infancy.
At 16 (well after he's dead) he marries a woman with same surname as himself & has children

Son B marries & starts producing children at 11, the mother's 26

Another son has children when he's 6!

Beware of copying trees you find on Ancestry. Some of them are utterly ludicrous. e.g. my sister m to a man b in 1723. The people with that 'info' have our dads correct year of birth as 1899, so I know it is my sister. How wrong can they get? She cant have m a man born 176 yrs before her own father, let alone have children so many years before her father was born. I have tried to get the people to remove my sister and our ancestors from their tree but some of the people deny that their 'info' is wrong. In fact I was told I should have lessons in how to genealogical research.

I've just had someone show me their tree with all the surnames spelt wrongly from just copying another tree. I don't know how they hoped for any matches!
By all means use the information as a guide but always recheck before entering it.

Hi Gareth
What everyone has said here is perfectly true, but don't let it put you off. Hot matches CAN be a great way of meeting someone who you have a family connection with, and a great source of info. BUT I would always check the info yourself as well, and most of the fun is researching yourself - although finding someone who has that missing link is always great!
I'm really bad at not limiting my time on here - hence still being on here when I have to be up in 6 hours to go and get ready to teach!!! It's a fantastic hobby, one that I'm sure will give you hours of fun, and a few frustrating brick walls on the way!

If you haven't already got it, and you can afford it, I suggest getting an Ancestry subscription. Although, if you post things up here people are normally VERY helpful and will look things up for you.

Good luck in your research!

Laura

Gareth

You cant 'DO' this hobby just by copying names.

If you want to follow the CORRECT line of your family...it's nessasary to buy a few certs (£7 per cert)

DONT reley on others research/guesses...get it right first hand.

Example.......I have a John and George Horton born Staffs UK.
I get hot matches for George and John Horton born all over the world!.......need i say more?

If you want to buy a BMD cert, here
is the link where you can buy it online..

http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/

(tip)Never pay more than £7
(another tip) for a marriage,you only need
put one partners name when ordering.

Happy hunting..


Gerri x

Thanks everyone for the honest replies.

I wouild echo everything that Sam has said. If you are going to just copy trees then you will just have a list of names similar to a telephone directory!
Perhaps as you have a busy life you could allocate yourself an evening a week to go treeing the same as you would any other hobby :))

You shouldn't really be growing your tree by just copying stuff from other peoples trees, you should be doing the research yourself and using other trees to confirm what you have or to point you in the right direction. How could you trust that the other person had got the information correct? Also, even though they may share their tree with you, most people will not be happy if you then copy all their information onto your own tree.

To answer your actual question though, the only way to merge trees is to export yours and the one you want to merge with, to a programme such as Family Tree Maker. You can then merge the two and import the new tree back to Genes.

Sam x

I have got a lot of hot matches that i need to go through if i get permission to view the trees and get hold of the information i need from that tree to grow mine.
Is there an easy way of doing it e.g merging the trees or do i have to write down each individual 1 at a time?
Im really keen to get the tree as develpoed as I can but I have such little time in which to do it and retirement is a long way off :(