I was adopted as an infant, and I actively searched for my family starting in 2000 when I got my first computer. I found my birth family in 2013, when I was 51. My parents were both deceased, but I found a cousin, who was raised around my mother (I am her only child), and 6 siblings on my father's side. I knew and continue to know, WAY MORE about my birth family and ancestors than anyone who was raised with my birth family! Even 1st & 2nd cousins on Ancestry, My Heritage, Wikitree, etc., have less or INCORRECT information, than I do. I've reached out to them and introduced myself and basically say, "I have a lot of info on my tree if you want to take a look at it and fill in some of your blanks☺️". I have pretty much been ignored, so I just let it go and keep my tree updated properly.🤷🏼

So glad you're covering this. People can be unbelievably rude - even if you've fallen over yourself to label things and encourage friendly communication as much as possible.

I had someone who was researching the husband of one of my distant relatives while I was researching the wife. He had information on more children but wasn't sure it was the correct family because they moved frequently. They had unusual names though. We put our heads together, both doing more research, and could tell they were the same family. It is nice when someone wants to collaborate with you to verify new information.

This is a really great video! I've spent 20+ years working on my family genealogy, knowledge that despite my painstaking efforts, lots of errors will be made. Last evening, I showed my mother the page I had for her and she kindly let me know that I had her middle name spelled wrong! 😂😂 My feeling is, at the end of the day, the folks you are communicating with are/could be family, so be open, receptive and don't be a jerk!

I wish I had more people point out my errors. I am likely if I get 1 per year. The only time I got annoyed was the time someone messaged my to correct my grammar. The information was correct but a couple of words were wrong in one of the descriptions. I gritted my teeth and thanked him.

One of the errors I see most often is duplicate entries that were created when merging records and trees.

Thank you, Crista! I sure enjoy your videos on Ancestry! They are always so informative and helpful---even for those of us who have been in genealogy quite a long time. Keep em coming :-)

Excellent discussion on the various situations which can be very sensitive. Great recommendations on how to communicate. Thanks, Crista

Love this video for a variety of reasons. It reminds us to be open to feedback because that is a part of collaboration. It also encourages us to be patient and kind when viewing possible errors in other's trees...my tree is far from perfect and it behooves me to remember that and to be patient with others. Also, we are asked to really take stock of what an error might be and how important it really is before we reach out. (Taking a moment to think it through makes a lot of sense in light of Crista's questions.) And finally, because the example Crista provided regarding her Kuykendall-Shipman relations shows her to be related to me. I think that we are 9th cousins!! Yay...It is like I am related to a celebrity! I am such a huge fan and have learned so much from you Crista!!

Very helpful, thank you so much!

Hi Crista, I love your videos. I have had both wonderfully kind people correcting my mistakes and also "stinkers." I love it when people help correct my tree. It has happened a few times and I always thank them for their effort to contact me. I have left a comment on a tree where I have tried to contact the tree owner on several occasions. I wish that the comments were more visible without going to another page. Most newbies won't know how to find the comments so the error is copied and it goes on and on.

When I know there's some debate about an ancestor's facts that I've posted--or if I'm testing theories by posting stuff I'm not sure about--I explain the issue in my own comments with a "Please contact if you have more info."

What a timely video. Thanks!

I so look forward to these videos, thanks for another great one. :)

I found a tree with my mother in law's information.. She is alive (she's in her 70's). This person had her marked as deceased and I could see all her info I wrote her, politely told her my MIL was alive and would she please mark her as living. I told her new my MIL personally. She wrote back and refused to mark her as living and she ripped me apart. If we were sitting face to face, I'd bet she would hae been yelling. That was the only person I ever blocked on Ancestry.

3:55 It’s OK inasmuch as it’s not illegal to perpetuate inaccurate information, but it’s a bummer when someone reacts like that out of pride and the myth lives on. I get what you’re saying though. This video is a must-view for all genealogists, not just rookies.

I know that I am the only one on both sides of my side of the family who is doing the work on our genealogy. I try to do my best to get the accurate information and try not to use family trees online unless I have to. I prefer to use the 1st and 2nd hand documents.

Excellent

What is the ancestry proof method? What are the steps to make sure I am adding facts to my tree? Can you direct me to a place that covers this?

Thanks for this video. I had a bad experience with another user when I first started and ended up making my tree private but I do see the importance of sharing information with others. There is a published genealogy book on one branch of my family tree and the book is accessible through ancestry.com records. I recently discovered a major error in the book and the wrong information is included on more than 35 trees. I have to say I was pretty excited to find proof of the error because I am somewhat new to genealogy. There is one member that I would like to share my discovery with and I wondered if I am able to send a record attachment with the email through ancestry.com? BTW - I have gone back and watched a lot of the Barefoot Genealogist KZfaq videos and I really enjoy them and have learned so many tips - Thank you!

I have a problem with a tree that I created on my iPad using the pretty new (at the time) Ancestry App. I was a beginner in 2015 and began a tree on the iPad. I found, as I went along, that the app didn't quite give me all the info that I could find on the Ancestry site. I then began a new tree on the computer and decided to delete the iPad app. Unfortunately I did not delete the original tree before deleting the app. I can no longer enter the original tree because it was formed in the iPad app. Now I occasionally find a reference to the old tree and, of course, some of the info is incorrect. I'm concerned because others may use this incorrect info in their trees.

This is excellent, thank you! I am also fascinated by the little girl you are using in the left sidebar! Is she just a stock photo, or part of your family? It looks strongly like she is dealing with CMT, and so might be part of mine ;)

I just started using Ancestry but have been doing family history for over 40 years. I have been using Family Search and Family Tree Maker for my work. When I see an obvious mistake in a public tree on Ancestry, do I message the person listed at the top of that tree or do I leave the message in the comments section of that tree? Does Ancestry notify the person that created that tree that there is a new comment or not? My biggest problem so far with using Ancestry is that there seems to be numerous versions of my ancestry and all of them have different ancestors from one tree to another and most have no sources linked showing where they got their information from. With Family Search, that does not seem to happen since everyone is working on one enormous tree and if there are multiple versions of a person you merge those versions after checking the sources attached and making sure everything is correct according to the sources. My ancestry seems to be much more accurate on Family Search than the numerous varied versions of my ancestry on Ancestry.com, which to me seems to be a total mess. As an example, my 3x great grandmother on Ancestry is listed as never married, no children in 2 trees, married to someone else with an entirely different family while census, birth and other records show her married to my 3x great grandfather in a completely different place. She is also listed in 3 different trees with 3 different sets of parents and born in 3 different states and yet census records show consistently that she was born in NC. Users of Ancestry don't seem to care about attaching sources that show where they got their info. When I messaged one person asking where they got their info, I was told it is correct because it came from a GEDCOM file. People don't seem to understand that another persons GEDCOM file may or may not be correct and GEDCOM file is not itself a source. So far I have only found one source on Ancestry that I have not found on Family Search. Getting frustrated with Ancestry very quickly when I was hoping to break through a few brick walls by getting a membership.

Ever since I got married to my wife, 12 years ago she has ran out of my house for about 5 times now. In fact she do run a way every two two years.

One reason for trees being inactive is that AncestryDNA memberships are expensive, and it could be that a lot of people can't afford to fork over $100 - $300 2x/year. I love ancestry but you need to find a way to provide this service at a lower cost. Also, Ancestry needs to work on vetting out hints before they are uploaded to databases...I've found numerous records with incorrect dates and name spellings.

What about when a record is transcribed incorrectly? I have baptism records for my mom and aunt from 100 years before they were born. I have submitted a request to change it, and it is still wrong. Granted, I probably wouldn't have those records if they were from the right year, because many records for people living are not available.

Don't forget people with the same name who married people who were related. The Hardys did this. Mary, John, James, William, Thomas...

Can dna test be delivered in croatia?

Love the video's. I am picking up some great hints. I have done the DNA test and have also said this on my profile. It would make good sense if Ancestry put it on people's profiles If they have done the DNA test. It would be of great help when looking at public trees. If you don't match up genetically you would know.

I've learnt to avoid Ancestry family trees; too many lazily post whatever suits - which the even lazier then copy-paste!- rather than do simple checks, or use basic common sense to not stuff anyone & everyone into 1 profile just because they happen to share a common surname, inc people on different continents! I volunteer finding & fixing errors on public family trees; it amazes me how shoddy people are with their own relatives, for the want of just a little application.. But then, not everyone is gifted with the focus of ASD 😉 x

What can you do about someone who thinks that you can give information on someone that you don't have any information on yourself and you have told them this multiple times and don't know how to even share records or screen shot. Btw, I can receive the messages on my phone app.

I was with mum when she died and on my tree have correct place. But I see all other peoples trees have incorrect place of death and so far only see mine correct

Comments on other user trees appear that they can only be posted to non-living people. Is there a reason for that?

Some people are really really snotty about my questions. I'm JUST stating or looking for FACTS. There are more interesting people to have on your tree than a president. My interest was Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell's folks. I have the same problem with Hogwarts role players because they have been playing things like, "House of Blackwell" borking up my Boolean! Grant is a really hard name to track because we've been Navy all the way across the Continental Congress. West Point....yeesh! Seems Elizabeth and Emily caught a ride with kinfolk who were back and forth so many times, it's hard to sort them out. Clearly kids should know they're Sons and Daughters of the Revolution at BIRTH. We had no access to our records until we got past the outlaws burning down courthouses after robbing banks out on the homestead.

Why are all these men contacting wanting yo be my special friend on ancestry? I've turned off my messages

I want to communicate with a few tree owners but I see nothing like you show on your screen. I am on the ancestry library edition and I don't even have a membership. So you don't need a membership to view the trees. I have really not found anything new that is not already on FamilyHistory. I prefer that site because it is free and you can actually communicate with others to make corrections. Some of the files are locked , so I have to go to the local church to scour. Far better than before when you had to order the films and wait two weeks for them to arrive and pay for them and then find nothing. Now you can do most from your home. The family history is better because it is one tree and you don't have 10 versions of the same tree that are all different. If I find a match with another tree or two , I will merge them all. You can also download your tree and save it on your computer so that if others change your online tree it won't affect the saved tree. People do try to make changes to your online tree and some are good but some are big mistakes or guesses with no data to back it up. I usually talk to these people to discuss and tell them to put notes that are very apparent , if something is an educated guess.

The only child that I have and has had custody of was Michael James Mciver I raised him half of his life and my mother raised him the other half of his life but that is my biological son and his fathers name is Edgar McDaniel Junior that's a fact the DNA was done to determine he was the father when I had to go to court for child support in Highlands County Florida