How to Use Online Family Trees Without Copying Their Mistakes

Other people's trees can be great leads or the fastest way to fill your tree with errors. How to tell the difference.

2 min read

Search almost any ancestor's name and you'll find other people's family trees, sometimes dozens of them, all claiming to know your great-great-grandmother's parents. These trees can save you months of work. They can also spread one person's guess to thousands of trees in a few clicks. Here is how to use them wisely.

Treat every tree as a lead, not a source

An online tree is someone's conclusion, not a record. Even a careful researcher can be wrong, and many trees are copied from other trees with no research at all. Twenty trees that agree don't prove anything if they all copied the same original mistake. The question to ask is always: what records support this?

Check the sources

Open the person's profile and look at what's attached:

• Good signs: census records, vital records, probate files or other original documents, with images, that actually name this person and relationship.
• Weak signs: the only "sources" are other family trees, a printed family history with no citations, or nothing at all.

Open the attached records and read them yourself. People often attach a record for the wrong person with the same name.

Red flags that a tree is wrong

• A mother giving birth before about age 13 or after about 50
• A child born after the father's death by more than nine months, or after the mother's death
• A person who is in two places at once, such as born in Virginia and Ohio in the same year in different records, with no explanation
• Children born every year for 30 years, which often means two families have been merged into one
• A family coat of arms or a connection to royalty or a famous figure, with no documented generations between
• Exactly the same details in many trees, including the same typo

Shared trees vs. personal trees

There are two kinds of online trees:

• Personal trees, like those on Ancestry or MyHeritage, belong to one person. Each one can be different.
• Shared trees, like the FamilySearch Family Tree or WikiTree, are one tree for everyone. Anyone can edit a profile. That means mistakes can be corrected, but also introduced. On FamilySearch, "watch" your ancestors so you're notified of changes, and add your sources and reasoning so others can see why a relationship is right.

Get the most from other researchers

The best part of online trees is often the people behind them. A tree owner might have the family Bible, photos or letters that never made it online. If a tree has something useful:

1. Message the owner politely. Say who you are, how you're related, and exactly what you're asking about.
2. Offer to share what you have in return.
3. Don't be discouraged by silence. Many trees are abandoned, and owners may not check messages.