Did you know there is a common mistake many of us are making, including myself, over on
Ancestry.com. Today, I'm going to invite you to stop making this mistake. The mistake that
we often make is to fail to go beyond the hint. When we navigate, as I'm going to show
you in just a little bit, to the hint. We look at that record and we think , "Oh, that's
for our ancestor." And then we move on. But I'm going to show you how one hint turned
into pages and pages and pages of family history documentation on an ancestor. I promise you
if you will stop doing this one incorrect thing, you may just break down brick walls
or have more material to write fabulous family histories. Now on Ancestry, a number of times
when I find hints that I wasn't expecting, it all comes from the leaf hints. So you can
access your leaf hints from the little icon up there. Search all hints. I have multiple
trees on Ancestry so I go ahead and I click on this one. I filter by last name. One of
my last names on my surname table that I'm almost always researching is the Zumsteins.
Now I have a lot of Zumsteins that I could filter through. There are six pages. I'm going
to filter down to Robert. And I going to see Robert Walter and Robert Victor. The other
way I can actually see some new hints is to be on my tree. So let's go back to the tree.
Click on that one. And here is the shaky leaf for Robert Victor Zumstein. So two ways. Sometimes
I'm in the pedigree view and sometimes I'm over browsing hints. So I'm going to click
on Robert Victor and go see the hint that we saw earlier. I click on hints. And now
we see for the Canadian World War I CEF Personnel Files from 1914 - 1948 for Robert Victor Zumstein.
His birth is 26 Dec 1896 and that matches what I already have. And his mother's name
is Adeline. And I have an Adeline. So, so far this index is smart, smart. I love how
this record is sideways. Now some of you may not know how to change the orientation of
this image. You might be trying to figure out how to read it. Well, click on these tool
buttons. And then you're going to have this pop up screen. And notice right there it said,
"Rotate Left." Oh! That's so much better. So, when we look at this image. Zoom in. I'm
actually using a roller on my mouse. I can see a number of great details on this Canadian
Military Record. I have his ID number, rank, the unit that he served in. His name, where
he served, as well as the street to send back to his next of kin. So I have more evidence
of at time and place where an ancestor lived. Gotta love that! As well as his signature.
Yay! Okay, how many of you like signatures. I LOVE to see my ancestors' signatures because.
Especially when you don't have a photo of an ancestor, or even when you do, I really
like to see their handwriting. So the next thing that we should do. Remember I said you
can't just stop here and think, "Oh that's great! You know, I saved it to my family tree,
we're going to move on." No! I want you always get in the habit of going a page forward and
a page back, or more. So, we're gonna go a page forward. And we have a blank page. Not
very helpful. Should you stop there? I hope you're hitting the no icon in our emojis.
But we're going to go one more page just to ensure that I'm not missing something. And
as it turns out, it's upside down. So we're going to go over here and we can rotate left
or right. And we're going to zoom in. And we're going to look for a name. And if we
come up here to the upper right. oops, into the middle. Private Henry Louis Zummach. There's
another way it is written Pvt. Zummach. That's not my guy. Okay. No problem. You do want
to check even if it isn't about your ancestor because what if it was? And what if you're
missing great details? It's not. Now, let's go the other way. So I'm going to click the
right arrow button that's on screen. And I'm going to go back. And I'm going to zoom out
actually. My record's upside down. That's okay for now. Go another page forward and
this is kind of cool, a little letter, but. Now we have to turn it around again. I wish
they had a flip or rotate 180. That would be handy. This is about my ancestor. and then
this is about my ancestor. It's a blank card. But this is about my ancestor and my ancestor
and my ancestor. So we're going to keep going and we're going to see lots and lots and lots
of PAGES about my ancestor. And you're just going to keep clicking. I mean, if you hit
a gold mine like this. Oh.... my goodness gracious. You're going to be thrilled to no
end. And that's an envelope so I'm thinking we're at the end of this packet. And sure...
nope! We're not! Keep going. Oh my goodness. Now this one is yep! Another Zumstein. Wow!
Can you imagine what you'll miss if you don't keep going? So we're going to keep going to
how many records. And then, those of you who want to stick around, we're going to dive
into what we see. And I don't know everything that is here. But we'll take a look anyway.
Now we're in a different last name. So, when did it end? I think right there. That's a
lot of pages. I love that. Now, a number of things you can do is you can actually download
this to your computer to process further. Click on Save. Save to your computer. But
it says, can't be saved to your tree because it isn't indexed. But no worries. You have
that first page saved to your tree. But we can save it to our computer by clicking "Save"and
it will give us our computer file folders so we can save. So we have to do every page
one at a time. But no worries. This is great stuff. So let's go back to the beginning.
So know we're looking at this document and I have Robert Victor Zumstein. And I'm not
entirely sure if that's his handwriting. I will have to go back and compare. But we have
his rank and his number. And we have 1st something Ontario Regiment. I think it Canadian but
let me know what you guys think in the comments. First Dpo, probably Department in Britian.
We have a number of little notes up here. But what I really like on this document is
enlistment place Toronto and then a date. So now I can build out a timeline. You don't
want to just grab one of the dates in this record. You want to grab all of the dates
so you can track your ancestor's movements and make a virtual map. Make a map over on
Google MyMaps which we've talked about before on this channel. Check the Show Notes for
all of the videos that I am going to mention. But I also have his birth date. Now if you
can't find a birth date on a birth certificate, then this record is providing you evidence
that this might be his birth date. You always have to be careful because sometimes people
like to the government to get into the military. But it is an alternative place to find a birth
date if you're missing one. We have next of kin. Mrs. Adeline Zumstein, mother. This is
evidence of a relationship. If you are trying to a four generation report for a client or
a project or to become a professional genealogist, you have a piece of direct evidence that establishes
relationships. Son to mother. Plus an address, and that is also handy. So moving forward
to some of the other things that I noticed in here that were particularly interesting.
So this is a discharge record. And what I really like about this is tells me he served
in Fance and England. We already knew about that. And we have a physical description.
This is great! He's only 5'6". So my eldest daughter is really mad that she didn't get
a lot of height. Well, her great-great-grandfather is 5'6". He is slightly taller than his wife,
so she must be short. And my grandma Helen was short. And then my mom was short. And
so. And then my mom's side of the family, they were short. So my daughter didn't have
any luck. But we can also see the complexion is medium.
The eyes are brown. The hair color is fair. And look that this! So I have photos of Grandpa
Zumstein but I never looked to see that he has a chicken pox scar on his forehead. And
now I have to go back and look at that. This is pretty fascinating details if you don't
have photos of your ancestors or to help you know more about your ancestor. So, if you
have Canadian military ancestor's you want to come over to Ancestry. I'm sorry. This
is well worth a yearly subscription because. If you have to scan this by yourself and then
look it all up, it would take you a lot of time. Plus traveling to the archives. I mean
can you imagine how much it's gonna cost me to go from New Mexico to the archives in Canada
to access this record? Yay. It's cheaper to get an Ancestry subscription. So this packet
alone is worth a year's subscription. But you're going to find other collections that
are just as awesome on Ancestry. So, I don't work with them. I don't get a kick back. But
you do want to go check it out if you need to. Alright, so. This is a medical examination.
This is kind of fun. Again, it tells us more details about what he looks like. He doesn't
have any problems in his different systems. That's great! There is another one where it
. Oh, is it this one? Yes! It tells me what his vision is and how far he can hear. That's
pretty great. So the healthy history is kind of nice. There is even dental examinations.
And it tells me he got some fillings and he did get dental treatment when he was in England.
Four fillings - right there. Pretty cool stuff. I don't want to bore you too much, but I did
want to show you one more in this collection. Here it is. Now I can't read it very well.
I'm going to have to take some time to transcribe this as best as I can then share it with some
others to get their feedback. But now we have his service report. So the date. And notice
it's in the way American's write dates but they have the day, 28, the month, 4 which
is April, and then 19. 1919. From who it oversee. Authority. Record of promotions, appointments,
reductions, casualties, transfers, and postings. So basically of timeline of where your ancestor
went. So, April 24th, June 18th, and then it continues on. There's another document
that it goes multiples pages and you can follow their service report. So, great details here
in these documents. This one is full of markings. They're driving me crazy but there are a lot
of dates. Arrived October 8th he arrived here. November 1st he was here. November 1st he
goes there. November 17th he's over here. And this is a good track record of where he's
going and traveling around. Wasn't that fantastic? I want you to go out and explore all of the
hints that you have. And make sure you've gone a page forward and a back after. Or multiple
pages forward and pages after. If you're ready, for something more about using Ancestry.com,
be sure to check out the top playlist. And if you're ready for something that was chosen
specifically with you in mind, check out the bottom playlist. So I invite you to ... Wasn't
that fantastic? What other documents and uh..