Take A Hint
- Leslie Ryan
- Mar 20
- 2 min read
Can you take a hint? Should you take a hint?
If you're anything like me, you're getting inundated with new hints all the time at Ancestry, My Heritage, and Family Search (they, at least, are not emailing me!) I know I'm lucky and I'm grateful for new info about my trees, but do I really want to add those in? Maybe not!
Before you accept a hint or one of those tempting photos purporting to be about your ancestor, VERIFY the info against what you already know, or don't know, as the case may be. Remember, this is a COMPUTER generating these hints for us, and it may find enough similarities to make it possible, but THIS "Mary McCarthy" is not necessarily YOUR Mary McCarthy.
Check the dates for birth, marriage, etc. Check the location. Remember that most of the time, people coming to the US moved WEST and further WEST. It is very rare for the to move back East.
Be especially careful when the source is another person's tree. Do they have any documentation? Do the other family members make sense? There are many, many erroneous tree entries that you don't want to perpetuate!
You don't have to accept ALL of the hints for a person at once. They will be parked there, waiting for you to come back when you have better information about this relative's family members, etc.
How's your Spring starting? Are you excited to make new discoveries and break through those brick walls? I'd be glad to help! Send me an email for a free review of your existing information for free pointers. Let's have some fun together!
Sincerely yours,
Leslie Ryan
No compensation is received for any links or referrals herein.
No copyright infringement is intended.
