HOW TO GROW A GREAT ONLINE FAMILY TREE

Michelle Leonard provides useful steps for creating an online tree with Ancestry. Virtually all of the tree-building facilities that she has covered are accessible with a free account. However, she has included such a wealth of advice that we think even i

Michelle Leonard provides useful steps for creating an online tree with Ancestry. Virtually all of the tree-building facilities that she has covered are accessible with a free account

Building a family tree is one of the primary ambitions for anyone setting out on a family history journey and it’s important to select suitable online tree providers as companions. Many sites offer tools for the uploading, building, storing and sharing of online trees and this article will provide an overview of the facilities offered by Ancestry from basic tree set-up to more advanced options. Read on for a plethora of hints and tips on how to get the most out of Ancestry’s tree-building tools.

Getting started

The first requirement is to sign up for a free Ancestry account but be aware that if you wish to use the site to research your family history - as opposed to just host your tree - then a subscription, of which Ancestry offer several different levels, will be

required. If your sole aim, however, is to upload or manually build a tree using information already in your possession then a free account is adequate for this purpose.

If you have previously constructed a tree elsewhere (e.g. using family history software or good old-fashioned paper versions) you can transfer this information into an Ancestry tree either manually or via GEDCOM (see page 10).

Do-over tip: don’t underestimate the benefits of a do-over! I generally recommend manual input if you have the time as it often highlights mistakes and gaps in your research. If your tree is very large, however, a do-over is a more daunting task.

When you begin...

When you begin the tree creation process on a new Ancestry account by adding yourself and your parents, a tool named the ‘Guided Tree Builder’ provides a series of prompts to help you along the way.

Tree-name tip: the first tree you build is automatically named ‘Your Surname Family Tree’ (e.g. ‘Leonard Family Tree’) and the privacy level is set to public. If you wish to change this, you have to do so manually after the fact. If, however, you have previously built trees on your Ancestry account the guided tree builder will not appear and the process is different. For subsequent trees a pop-up appears, after two names have been entered, prompting you to name the new tree and choose whether or not you wish it to be public via the ‘allow others to view this tree’ setting.

Tree Settings

It’s important to get in the habit of checking and tweaking the ‘Tree Settings’, which can be accessed via the dropdown list underneath the tree name, whenever you create a new tree. (See images above).

• Tree Info: you can amend the tree name, add a description and choose whether you want the ‘Lifestory’ tool to automatically create stories here. You can also identify the tree’s home person, who you are on the tree (these should generally be the same person) and decide on hint preferences.

Relationship prediction tip: always make sure you have chosen the correct home person for accurate relationship predictions.

• Privacy Settings: the three levels of tree privacy settings on Ancestry are public, private and searchable and private and unsearchable. A private searchable tree permits basic information on deceased entries to appear in search results for other Ancestry users who could then message you about that individual being in your tree.

If you would rather no information appears in search results at all then you need to designate the tree both private AND unsearchable. It is best to keep speculative trees (e.g. ‘quick and dirty’ trees for DNA matches) private and unsearchable in order to avoid other Ancestry users copying what may be unverified or erroneous information as copied mistakes often spread like wildfire.

Living person tip: never list a living person as deceased as that renders them visible on the site unless your tree is private and unsearchable. Ancestry privatises any profile marked as living but if a living person is marked as deceased the system treats them as deceased.

• Sharing: it’s very easy to share trees on Ancestry via the ‘Sharing’ tab which can be found either in ‘Tree Settings’ or on the dropdown list under tree name. Invites can be issued via email, Ancestry username or shareable link. (See above left)

Shareable links tip: if using shareable links remember they are one-time use only so separate links are required to issue multiple invitations.

It’s important to understand the differences between the three available sharing levels – Guest, Contributor and Editor. A Guest invite is adequate if you only want the invitee to be able to view your tree but if you would like to allow family members to collaborate you will need to consider the Contributor and Editor roles. Never invite someone to be an Editor on your tree unless you wish them to have the ability to alter it and see living people. All invitees need to create free Ancestry accounts in order to view trees to which they have been invited.

Tip: if you ever wish to amend the access level or remove an invitee you can do so on the ‘Sharing’ tab in ‘Tree Settings’.

Tree Creation

Once you’ve organised the settings, you’re ready to properly begin the building process! I recommend viewing the tree in ‘Pedigree View’ then adding all known direct ancestors as far back as you can before turning your attention to collateral lines (siblings of direct ancestors).

Simply click on ‘+Add father’ and ‘+Add mother’ and work your way backwards on your lines inputting basic information such as name and birth and death dates and places.

•Ancestor Hints: if you choose to ‘display ancestor hints’ in hint preferences you may be provided with ‘Potential Father’ and ‘Potential Mother’ hints as you build a tree.

Be exceptionally careful with these hints as the information is sourced from other user-submitted trees and could easily be incorrect. Treating these hints as clues and investigating thoroughly before accepting or rejecting them should help you avoid errors. The tool can be very helpful for experienced tree builders who understand the pitfalls and wish to build quick & dirty trees (e.g. for DNA mysteries) but I advise extreme caution for beginners.

• Lifestory: displays not only personal facts but historical insights and populates automatically if turned on – worth keeping an eye on!

• Facts: Ancestry provide a detailed list of facts that can be added to individual profile pages and you should aim to add birth, marriage, death, census and burial facts as a minimum but don’t forget that you can also add your own tailored

facts as ‘Custom Events’. Facts are the backbone of an Ancestry tree so use them to tell the stories of your ancestors.

‘Fact’ tip: I add a ‘Custom Event’ fact to identified DNA matches I’ve added to my tree – I label it ‘DNA Match’ and place the amount of DNA shared and the testing site at which they’ve tested in the description box.

Gallery: uploaded photographs, documents and stories are displayed in the Gallery section. There is both an overarching Media Gallery containing all the media for the entire tree and a Gallery page for each individual profile. To upload an image go to the Gallery of the person to whom you wish to attach it then click ‘Add’ on the right-hand side and you will be able to choose between uploading a photograph or story or creating a new story directly on the site. To upload simply choose the file from your computer and once the upload is complete you can select a title and add a description and source citation.

Alternatively if you wish to add a document that pertains to a specific fact (e.g. a birth record for a birth fact) it’s best to click ‘Edit’ on the fact itself followed by ‘Upload Media’. That way once the record is uploaded it will instantly be attached to the correct fact. If you upload documents using the first method and later decide you would like to link them to particular facts, just scroll to the fact in question, click on ‘Edit’ then ‘Media’ and in the list below you will see all the media items you can add to the fact via a plus button.

A note about hints: paid subscribers receive hints to record sets and user trees but it’s essential to remember that these hints are clues that require detailed evaluation. Never blindly accept them as accurate: some will be and some won’t so investigate them thoroughly and if you’re not 100% sure they fit don’t accept them as this could automatically add erroneous facts to your tree. I recommend placing ambiguous hints in the ‘Maybe’ category and periodically re-visiting the Maybes to check if new evidence has come to light to prove or disprove each hint.

Document images tip: If you invite family members with free accounts to view a tree they will be able to see any manually uploaded images but not those behind the subscription paywall.

Etiquette: Never download photographs from another user’s tree to your computer and then re-upload them to your own tree without permission and acknowledgement. It is important to credit the user who originally uploaded the photographs and if their tree is public you should be able to attach the photographs to your own tree via hints. Sources: it’s important to cite sources for all facts you enter into your tree. If you have a subscription and add facts via record sets then sources are added automatically but you can also add manual sources. Simply click on ‘Add’ next to the ‘Sources’ box to create a new source to add to a fact or use ‘Web Link’ to point to an online source. Keep your source citations simple but consistent; always ask yourself if you could access the original record from the information provided? If so, that’s good enough!

Tagging & Filtering

Mytreetags: I strongly recommend making use of the Mytreetags tool when building trees on Ancestry. The Mytreetags blue icon is located directly beneath the basic name/birth/ death details on individual profile pages. Simply click on it and the right-hand side column will display tagging and filtering options.

There are DNA, Life Experience, Relationship and Research Status tags as well as the opportunity to create your own custom tags.

There are many useful tags to choose from within these sub-groups such as ‘DNA Match’ in DNA tags or ‘Actively Researching’ in Research Status tags.

Mytreetag tips: Add the ‘DNA Match’ tag to DNA matches you have identified and added to your tree. Equally utilise the ‘Brick Wall’ tag to categorize your research sticking points or the ‘Actively Researching’ tag to group together your current research projects. ‘Unverified’ is another very useful tag to keep track of individuals who require further investigation.

Filtering: Mytreetags is a fantastic organisational toolset because of how you can filter with the tags after they are in place. Using the ‘Tree Search’ function you can filter by a specific tag or tags and generate lists of just your DNA matches, brick walls, military relatives etc. If you cultivate the habit of adding all pertinent tags to new additions, you will develop a wellorganised tree which can be filtered in multiple ways. The sky is the limit when it comes to ‘Custom Tags’ as well e.g. while there is a general ‘Military Service’ tag, I prefer more specificity and have created custom tags for WWI and WWII service as well as separate ones for those who died during each war. This means that, at any time, I can filter by these tags and view lists containing every person on my tree who served or died in either war.

Research Tools

There are a number of useful research tools and my main tip would be to make them visible on profile pages so you don’t forget they exist. To do this click on ‘Tools’ then ‘Show Research Tools’ and they will display in a bar under the name details on individual profile pages.

• View in Tree: a particularly useful tool for swapping back and forth between individual profile pages and tree pedigree view.

• Notes: don’t bypass the ‘Notes’ section! It’s the perfect place to log your progress on individuals.

• Member Connect: you could discover cousins to collaborate with who are researching the same ancestors in this section.

Avoiding Duplicates: a common problem many subscribers will encounter is the duplication of individuals when they add facts via the hints system. Census and marriage hints are regular culprits and it’s very easy to end up adding a new entry for a person who is already on your tree (e.g. be very wary of slightly different names when accepting a new record hint – Lizzie instead of Elizabeth could be enough for the system to prompt you into adding a new person so take time to evaluate each addition and use the ‘Not a new person?’

preference to avoid duplication.)

No matter how vigilant you are, however, you will end up with a duplicate at some point so it’s important to become familiar with the ‘Merge with Duplicate’ tool so you can clean up mistakes.

Merge duplicates tip: when you merge duplicates you will find that facts from the profile of the merged entry copy over but are no longer linked to the attached sources. Edit the fact and go to ‘Source Citations’ to re-link the fact and source to each other.

DNA & Tree Integration

Linking DNA Results To Trees: if you have taken an Ancestrydna test one of the most beneficial things you can do is link your DNA results to your tree as this will enable the system to work for you by generating ‘Common Ancestor Hints’, ‘Thrulines’ and more. Navigate to the ‘Settings’ button on your DNA homepage then scroll down to the ‘Tree Link’ section from where you can choose the tree you wish to link and the name of the DNA tester in that tree – be very careful to link the tester to their correct spot on the tree.

DNA linked tree tip: you can only link ONE tree to your DNA results so it’s best to have an amalgamated tree containing all your direct ancestors as opposed to several separate trees (e.g. paternal and maternal trees).

•DNA Discoveries: to view the ‘DNA Discoveries’ settings click on the DNA icon on the vertical settings bar in pedigree or family view. I recommend turning on the ‘Thrulines’, ‘Possible DNA Matches’ and ‘Connected DNA Matches’ icons. DNA Discoveries provides an excellent level of integration between Ancestry’s tree facilities and DNA tools.

• Orphan Branches: I recommend creating private and unsearchable master research trees to expand DNA match trees in one place. To do this you must first learn how to create orphan branches; attach the new DNA match as a close relative of any other person on the tree then use the ‘Edit Relationships’ tool to remove that relationship. This will leave you with the DNA match unattached to anyone else on the tree (hence the term ‘orphan branch’) and you can build their tree out from there. Remember to attach a ‘DNA Match’ tag for organisational purposes!

Tree Management

• Exporting Your Ancestry Tree: if you wish to upload your Ancestry tree to family tree software or another website that accepts GEDCOMS you can do so via the export function. Scroll to the ‘Manage Your Tree’ section of ‘Tree Settings’ then hit ‘Export tree’. While the GEDCOM is generating a percentage bar is displayed and once the process is complete a ‘Download your GEDCOM file’ button appears.

• Deleting your tree: if you later decide to delete an entire Ancestry tree, you can do so in the ‘Manage Your Tree’ area on the ‘Tree Info’ section of the ‘Tree Settings’ page. Before embarking on this course of action, however, export a back-up GEDCOM and be very certain you wish to proceed as once the tree is deleted it cannot be retrieved. Remember GEDCOMS are text-only so do not export images.

Conclusion

This article provides an overview of Ancestry’s tree facilities but it’s important to point out that there are many other online tree providers such as Findmypast, Myheritage, Thegenealogist and one world collaborative trees operated by Familysearch, Geni and Wikitree. It’s never a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket and limit yourself to just one online tree – I would recommend hosting your tree on at least two online sites. Equally keep in mind that the online world can change, websites may one day no longer exist and the best way to future-proof your tree is to take a two-pronged approach to treebuilding by using not only online sites but offline family tree software as well. Some providers even provide syncing capabilities with Ancestry trees. If you do decide to take the plunge with an online tree, Ancestry’s offering is user-friendly, can be used as a free repository for your tree and boasts excellent integration of organisational and DNA tools – just be aware that a subscription is required to delve into the research arm of the site.

About the author Michelle Leonard is a professional genealogist, DNA detective, speaker, co-author of ‘Tracing your ancestors using DNA’, historian and the official genetic genealogist of #Ancestryhour. She runs her own business, Genes & Genealogy, and specialises in solving all manner of unknown ancestor mysteries using a combination of DNA and traditional research methods.

Right: How to upload a GEDCOM To upload a GEDCOM simply click on ‘Trees’ and then ‘Upload a GEDCOM file’ Below: For your first tree When creating your first tree follow the ‘Guided Tree Builder’ prompts and start by adding yourself Right: Naming your trees Example of naming and choosing privacy settings for subsequent trees (your first tree will be named automatically)

How to change ‘Tree Settings’ Above left: Select ‘Tree Settings’ when you wish to update or alter information about your tree’s set-up. Above right: Settings’, the ‘Tree Info’ tab is where you may change your tree name, description and hint preferences for instance Right: Example of information provided in search results by a private searchable tree Within ‘Tree

There are several ways to easily share your Ancestry tree i.e. by email, Ancestry username or one-time use shareable link When sharing your tree it’s important to decide whether you want to give Guest, Contributor or Editor roles to your invitee Pedigree: Note the pedigree view icon (outlined in red, top left), and the boxes for further generations: ‘+add father’ etc Hints: You can opt whether to ‘display ancestor hints’, but remember that they are suggestions only – so you need to verify each one yourself Potential ancestors: If you have chosen to display ancestor hints, you may see ‘potential father’ and ‘potential mother’ hints flagged up in green on your tree

Facts: You should aim to add all the key facts (birth, death etc), and may also add ‘custom facts’ to suit your own research requirements Mytreetags: click the blue icon (marked in red above) to utilise the tags already set-up, or create your own custom tags Custom facts: I create custom facts for my DNA matches, labelling them ‘DNA Match’ and including the number of centimorgans and segments shared

Filtering: once you have applied tags to your research, you can quickly filter by tag to find relevant entries in your tree Mytreetags: use the Ancestry-provided tags (listed above) or create as many custom tags as you find useful – they are designed to help keep your research organised and running smoothly Research tools: I advise you to opt to ‘Show Research Tools’ so that you remember to use them How to get rid of a duplicate entry on your tree 1. Thomas’ wife Ann is already on my tree but this 1891 Census hint suggests she’s a new person – if I tick the ‘Add’ box I will add ‘Annie’ as a duplicate but ticking ‘Not a new person?’ avoids this mistake. If, however, I made the mistake of adding ‘Annie’ as new I would end up with a duplicate to fix (see images on page 15)

Linking your tree to your DNA results: this is the most important step you can take after testing as it will enable access to DNA tools such as ‘Thrulines’ which can help you with identifying connections DNA Discoveries: Click on the DNA icon (right, outlined in red) to access ‘DNA Discoveries’ settings and integrate your linked tree with Ancestry’s DNA tools 2. Using the ‘Merge with Duplicate’ tool fixes the problem Turning on DNA Discoveries: I suggest turning on ‘Thrulines’, ‘Possible DNA Matches’ and ‘Connected DNA Matches’ after linking your tree

How to create an orphan branch Add your DNA match as the child/spouse of any existing entry on your family tree then use the ‘Edit Relationships’ button to remove the link. This creates the base person of an orphan branch tree GEDCOM export: Exporting your tree as a GEDCOM has many uses. You may wish to import it to family history software, or simply export a GEDCOM so that you have a backup of your Ancestry tree Deleting your tree: This action cannot be undone. You may alternatively wish to set your tree to private and unsearchable if you wish to prevent others seeing it