Family History Tips-Part 17

Don’t Bark Up the Wrong Tree! The Perils of Ancestry’s “Famous” Shaky Leaf

You have several proven facts on your maternal two-times great-grandfather Johann Jacob Borkert. You have him established as living in Berks County, Pennsylvania in U.S. Census records from 1850 to 1920; you found his birth and death records showing he was born and died in Berks County; he was married in Berks County; in fact, every established record you have points to said county. And then Ancestry gives you 26 shaky leafs with hints pointing to records in Germany, Idaho, Canada, and Ireland, with, perhaps, two matches in Berks County.

Ancestry may be fantastic in being the largest database collection online, but they certainly come short in making their database collection searchable and reliable. I think they are more interested in business. One look at an Ancestry commercial makes it all look so easy—the happy would-be family historian says, “I just clicked on a shaky leaf and I went back six generations to my ancestor who was a general in the Revolution.” 

It is sad to see that about 90 percent of public trees on Ancestry are loosely based on mismatched shaky leaf hints and/or other Ancestry users’ trees that have been following wrong leads, too—the blind are leading the blind. These poor misguided folks think they have found their ancestors, but, instead, they are barking up the wrong tree.

Granted, a few of those shaky leaves lead to relevant information, but you must carefully sift through them. What is amazing is that the shaky leaf hints don’t pick up on more relevant matches. Often, these need to be searched individually within the various databases.  
For example, if I have John Jacob Borkert born on 10 February 1850 and died on 29 April 1929, both in Berks County, why don’t Ancestry’s hints find the matches that are available in an indexed baptismal register, military draft registration and/or Pennsylvania death certificate? I am not sure what Ancestry’s IT team is doing, but they certainly need to work on their algorithms. 

Sorry about my rant, but I needed to get this off my chest. I just don’t want you to be a victim of commercialized find-your-family-history-in-a-week schemes. Next week, I will discuss a few tricks on how to make that annoying shaky leaf shake a few ancestors from your tree.