As I’ve been combing through pages and pages upon MORE pages of public Family Trees people have uploaded to Ancestry, I’ve discovered quite a bit of incorrect dates, places, spouses, children, etc. (hard to believe, I know!) I decided that the best way to either have the information corrected – or at least to make sure others realize that there are errors, is to leave comments giving documentation and sources for the correct facts.
So my Tuesday Tip is this – leave a comment wherever you find what I like to call “fictional” information – especially on Ancestry (but on any website you find with inaccuracies) – so others will have a better view of the correct information.
Thank you! I have resigned myself to trusting only those links on Ancestry.com that have source records, although personal family trees can be used as clues to more information.
Whenever possible I also correct census transcription errors on Ancestry when I know for certain from family members that spelling of a name is incorrect, i.e. changing “Wallie” to the correct “Willie.”
I had sent my partially “fictional” information to a relative to peruse and that person uploaded it along with his information to Ancestry…I cringe every time I come across it! Thanks for the tip!
Such a good tip! I’ve tried messaging people on Ancestry, eager to share information so that I could help send them on the right path, but they never respond. I’ve seen ten family trees following the same wrong person as one ancestor’s wife simply because they all copied from each other.