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Family Trees: An Online Research Tool (view source)
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'''Family Trees: An Online Research Tool''' | '''Family Trees: An Online Research Tool''' | ||
'''Definition'''<br>There are many websites on the Internet that allow you to publish your family tree online for free. These sites can be an invaluable tool to the researcher to get | '''Definition'''<br>There are many websites on the Internet that allow you to publish your family tree online for free. These sites can be an invaluable tool to the researcher to get ideas of who the parents or siblings or children might be to someone that they are researching. Many of these sites are free to search though some of them charge a yearly or monthly fee. Often there are also message boards attached that can give you additional information. However, these sites must be used with caution! | ||
'''<br>Sites where you can search others family trees.''' | |||
Rootsweb or World Connect <br>World Family Tree <br>Ancestry.com <br>Pedigree Resource File <br><br>'''Beware of Information without Sources Attached. '''<br>Many times people have just looked through these family trees and decided that the people, dates and places that they found are correct, and then add that information to their own family tree without researching whether or not the information is correct. If the data you find on a website doesn't have a source attached or merely says something like: "Note book number 2," beware, the information may not be correct. At least 99% of the time when I have contacted an owner of a family tree regarding some information that they have published, they will respond with the answer that they found that information on someone else's online family tree. In other words, they don't know their information is correct; they are simply copying someone else's dubious posting. | |||
<br>'''Check For Consistency of Dates and Locations'''<br>Many times there are blatant errors in the family trees that are posted on line. For example, while searching for one of my own ancestors, I found him listed in several family trees as being married to two women in different counties miles apart and having children at the same time with both wives. Now this might be true if he had been a "Mormon" in the late 1800's, but he was a German Baptist or Dunkard and that religion didn't believe in plural marriage, nor was plural marriage even practiced during the period in question (1810-1830). But the most amazing thing about him was that according to Virginia court records he was left an orphan under the age of 14 when his father died in 1792 -- but one of these family trees not only noted the death date of his father in 1792 but also stated that his father married in 1801 and had children in 1803. Now that would be amazing! | <br>'''Check For Consistency of Dates and Locations'''<br>Many times there are blatant errors in the family trees that are posted on line. For example, while searching for one of my own ancestors, I found him listed in several family trees as being married to two women in different counties miles apart and having children at the same time with both wives. Now this might be true if he had been a "Mormon" in the late 1800's, but he was a German Baptist or Dunkard and that religion didn't believe in plural marriage, nor was plural marriage even practiced during the period in question (1810-1830). But the most amazing thing about him was that according to Virginia court records he was left an orphan under the age of 14 when his father died in 1792 -- but one of these family trees not only noted the death date of his father in 1792 but also stated that his father married in 1801 and had children in 1803. Now that would be amazing! | ||