Family Trees on Ancestry.com

There are many resources out there to aid us in our search for our ancestors. One resource that many overlook is Family Trees on Ancestry.com. There are many ways to use Family Trees, but I will cover two important uses in this article.

First, there is a lot of research information that is available in these trees. When you start researching a name the first place to look is the Family Trees section on Ancestry. About 75% of all research is duplicate research. By searching for your particular research name or family in this section, you can see who is also researching those ancestors. This search also gives you names of those who may be researching the same line as you and you can contact them and hopefully work together and share information.

Not all Trees are alike. The valuable ones are the ones with sources attached to verify the information in their tree. These sources can save you lots of hours of research time because someone has taken the time to find them for you. Be sure and verify each source for accuracy though.

There are treasures in these trees too. I have found lots of photos, newspapers articles, and histories that are from private sources and only found in these trees. One great find was portraits painted of ancestors from the 1700s. People have been generous in sharing their information.

Another use for Ancestry Family Trees is to upload your tree onto Ancestry and let Ancestry research for you. Those shaky leaves are a significant help in locating documents and other information that will aid your research. Ancestry does link to Family Search, and you can upload your tree from FamilySearch into Ancestry. Ancestry only uploads four generations at a time, and so you will have to go to the end of the line and upload four more to get your bigger trees onto Ancestry.

The records you find on Ancestry can be sourced to your tree on FamilySearch through a free browser extension from recordseek.com. Recordseek has step-by-step instructions on how to attach your sources. This an excellent resource for those using both sites.

The first thing one should do when starting their research is to check to seek if someone else has also researched those same ancestors. Take advantage of all that Ancestry Family Trees has to offer. Have fun researching with those shaky leaves!