recently I've been arguing with somebody over the value of tree hint and record hints and I
want to share my thoughts and then have you weigh in on this controversy. So today join us as we
talk about which ones are better to build your family tree: Tree Hints or record hints. Howdy,
I'm Devon Noel Lee with Family History Fanatics where we love to help you climb your family tree
and have a whole lot of fun along the way. Now hinting on genealogy platforms has revolutionized
how we do genealogy research. In fact, it is almost like having a genealogy research assistant
working for you round the clock. Wait I think there's an ad somewhere on the podcast that
says that. But yes they do make things come to you a whole lot faster and if you saw my video
about how one hint turned into pages of records on Ancestry you know what I mean. But if you have a
limited amount of time to work on your family tree should you focus on tree hints or record hints?
That is the point of this video and the debate be sure to check out the show notes for this video
because over on the blog I share with you some of the feedback from professional genealogists
and where they fall on this debate. You'll find the link in the description but it will always
be on familyhistoryfanatics.com/blog pins help us find a lot of great information. They can help us
find additional relationships that we didn't know about. How many of you have looked at a census
record only to find, oh there's a child that I didn't know existed, or oh here's the missing
mother-in-law. Yeah, exactly more facts to make our ancestors’ life come back to life. So to speak
and then name variations. Oh my goodness sometimes we can't find the records we're looking for and
then the tents will suggest an alternate spelling and then you're like yep that's my ancestor.
So tree hints versus record hits. What really is the difference tree hints are hints to
other trees created by other users on the platform that may have ancestors that are in
common with you. Record hints by contrast point to historical documents that we need to build
our family tree. And most genealogy researchers prefer to build their tree on documents. So you
kind of know where I'm going with this however my colleague Peggy Lauritzen points out that
“I want to glean what others have added that may not be found anywhere else.” so there are trees by
other users that have bible pages and a lot of other details that you didn't
know existed and they're on member trees on Ancestry, FindMyPast, and MyHeritage
but FamilySearch is different. FamilySearch is one tree. So if you're using family tree I mean
Family Search to build your family tree the family tree hints are meaningless. However, they do have
duplicates hints and that's a video that I've talked about on this channel and you need to go
watch what to do about duplicates on the family tree but let's focus on tree hints. Be careful
adding any information from someone else's family tree until you have processed it and validate it
and maybe you've already guessed that I'm not a fan of family tree hints. I will use them
if I'm working on a brick wall maybe but for the most part, I avoid tree hints because they are a
time suck. They are almost always trees that don't have documentation. There are almost always trees
that keep propagating corrections that I've made and I can't get other users to upstage or at least
discuss to tell me why they think I'm wrong. So no I don't prefer or focus on tree hints whenever I'm
using a platform that has tree hints. Now perhaps if I was using FindMyPast. They have said that a
lot of Irish and British and Welsh ancestor trees are built there and they're not anywhere else and
they have details that nobody else has. So in that case maybe because I'm working on FindMyPast and
I'm researching in those locations then I will give the tree hints a look that I talked about
in a video here on this channel. That aside yeah I'm not a fan of tree hints. Now if you are going
to use family tree hints and when I am working on a brick wall case I will use tree suggestions if
they're based on sources. So if I see a tree that has no sources for the people in the tree
then I highly doubt the accuracy of that tree. Now if then I find that the sources are more than just
other family trees then that tree is going to peak my interest just a little bit more. And finally,
I will only accept new information from other people's family trees if I have looked at their
sources and validated them to be accurate. So that is what you need to keep in mind if you
start processing family tree hints. Now one thing I learned in talking to my colleagues
at ancestry.com is when you go and you are looking at a record and on the right column
there are suggested records for that person mentioned in the record that you're looking at.
Those are another form of hints and a lot of them are based on other member trees. So for me, I just
go ahead and just focus on records. Genealogy should be based on historical documentation
quality genealogical sources. Therefore I'm going to look at record hints before I look at
tree hints. Now the computer algorithms can only suggest a possible record that's for my ancestor.
So what do I need to do I need to look at those sources and validate that they are about my
ancestor. If they are, then I accept it into my tree. If they are not then I reject them. So let's
see you let's have a fun little discussion in the comments. Do you focus on tree hints do you
focus on research hints? Do you focus on both? Or do you ignore them completely?
I want you to weigh in and let me know. Now if you're ready to learn how to be a better
genealogist be sure to check out the playlist up here and if you're ready for something chosen
specifically with you in mind by our friends at YouTube check out this video right here.