Ancestry tree? Would you like your tree public or private?
Are you getting the most from your
It’s extremely easy to get started with an online family tree on Ancestry. Here we provide tips to help you enhance your research and share your tree with family and friends
Discover simple steps to create the family tree that’s just right for your research needs. On Ancestry, you can create as many family trees as you like. You may wish to have a master tree, complete with verified information and on public view. You may also like to create a private tree, concentrating on a specific branch, while you work out a knotty research problem for instance.
Of course, key to family history research is sharing your discoveries and there are several easy ways to share your tree with family members and fellow researchers.
Adjusting your tree settings
Ancestry allow you to specify whether each tree is:
• public
• private
• or private and unsearchable. To adjust your tree settings, see the three steps to follow.
❶ Go to ‘Trees’, then select ‘Create and Manage Trees’.
❷ Select ‘Tree Settings’.
Select ‘Privacy Settings’ and choose whether to make your tree ‘public’, ‘private’ and whether you would like to prevent it from being found in the search index.
How to share your tree
While you are in ‘Tree Settings’ you may also like to look at the ‘Sharing’ options (see image 4, above). Here you will find options to share your tree via:
• Ancestry user name
• or through a specific link, for instance with fellow researchers or your family members.
How to set a home person on your tree
Perhaps you would like to create a family tree for a loved one, in which case you want to be sure they are set as the home person of their tree. To set a home person:
• Follow steps 1 to 3 (see the facing page i.e. selecting ‘Trees’, ‘Create and Manage Trees’ and ‘Tree Settings’). Now select ‘Tree Info’.
• Then select ‘Choose’ (see image 5, above) to choose which person in the tree you would like to be the home person.
Attaching sources to your tree
Adding sources is vital to family history research, proving the validity of your findings, helping you keep your research organised, and providing ready access to information about the fascinating historical records you will find on Ancestry. There are several ways in which you can add a source to your tree. (See images 6 to 10 for tips on how to do this). It can seem a little daunting initially but is surprisingly easy once you begin.
The easiest way to add a source citation is simply, when finding a useful search result, to save the source to the relevant person in your tree. Ancestry will automatically add the source citation for you.
To see the source citation, select the relevant source from the list, select ‘View’ (see above).
Then select ‘Citation details’ (see right). (If you wish to export your family tree as a GEDCOM then these source citation details will be included automatically.)
You can also add source citations for records that you hold in your family archives for instance. To do this, select ‘Add source’.
The drop down menu has a range of source types to choose from, and then fill in such details as: name, date, a transcription of the contents of the source, and an archive reference to create your source citation.