Guess we now know which Genealogy software companies use Amazon! MyHeritage.com and Findmypast.com are up and running. (2 PM Eastern)
I hope this is a wake up call to all of you who haven’t SYNCHED or DOWNLOADED your trees elsewhere!
All of the software companies are working. I’m able to access all of my info because I’ve saved it other than Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org.
When the cloud service is restored you may want to read my blog articles on how you can prepare for the next time. Here’s the how to for FREE – Legacy Family Tree does not synch but you can upload a downloaded .gedcom from Ancestry. This means you won’t have pictures of the census or any other media but you will have the information about your ancestors. This older blog article talks about a previous version of Family Tree Maker, I’ve updated to the latest and greatest which fixed the problem I encountered and provided the work around. I don’t use FTM’s vault, a cloud service, but you might want to consider it given what’s happened today with Ancestry. I no longer use RootsMagic since version 8 as later updates would not allow me to synch with Ancestry. They do have a free version for smaller trees you could download. I do appreciate that their tech folks recommended I try downloading my tree with the free version to see if the problem was corrected; it wasn’t but they are aware of it and working on it. Click here for the free version.
Your genealogy research does not have to stop when a part of the internet breaks. Go make a cup of tea, write up what you’ve been working on, and make a plan for the future so you don’t get caught without access to your information. Here’s links to an older blog about writing up your research using AI. If you aren’t comfortable with AI, here’s an alternative. Remember, once upon a time there was no “online” for us to use to help us with genealogy.
For the past two weeks I’ve been blogging about Ancestry.com’s Pro Tools. You can read about my experience here and here.
Today, I’m going to show you how to clean your Ancestry tree without paying for Pro Tools. It’s super easy and honestly, I wish I’d thought of this years ago.
Start by picking a free or low-cost software program. Family Tree Maker and RootsMagic both sync directly with Ancestry. RootsMagic Essentials is free, but large trees can slow it down (I blogged about that here). If you don’t need access to your photos or documents and just want to focus on fixing errors, you can also download your tree as a GEDCOM and import it into Legacy Family Tree, which is what I did.
I kept things simple. I didn’t need media files for the check up, I just wanted to identify structural problems in my tree.
Here’s how to do it:
On Ancestry, go to your tree.
Click Tree Settings under Trees > Create & Manage Trees.
Scroll down and select Export Tree.
Once complete, download the file to your computer (it usually lands in your Downloads folder or OneDrive).
Open your genealogy software and import the GEDCOM.
Run the problem checker.
If you run into trouble with the software, you can literally ask ChatGPT (aka Geni!) for help. That’s how I found this entire workaround.
Once your tree is loaded, use the software’s built-in tools to flag potential problems. In Legacy, I went to Tools > Potential Problems. I set criteria to mirror the kinds of problems flagged by Ancestry’s Pro Tools, things like parents being too young, children born after a parent’s death, and so on.
One downside: Legacy doesn’t flag individuals with no sources, which was one of the main issues Pro Tools surfaced. But what Legacy did reveal was surprising and far more accurate.
Here’s the report I got from Legacy (the error types flagged by Ancestry are in red):
Let that sink in: 940 total errors, almost all of which are legitimate and actionable. Of that, there was only 55 errors that Ancestry claimed was 301 and they didn’t identify these people! I plan on cleaning up all of the errors Legacy found as having two individuals over age 110 years is a problem Ancestry should have discovered. And the individuals with no sex given? That is a continual flaw in Ancestry’s system when you are adding new individuals.
Unlike Ancestry’s Tree Checker, which falsely flagged over 10,000+ records in my tree, Legacy gave me a clean, accurate list I could work with. I now have the names and the issues. I’m going through them one by one and making the corrections directly in my Ancestry tree, since that’s still my primary working tree. I’ll continue syncing it with Family Tree Maker.
And if I get another $7 Pro Tools offer in the future? Sure, I might try it again just to check whether they’ve cleaned up the bugs. But I’ll cancel it right after. Because let’s be honest:
If Ancestry really wants our trees to be accurate, they should provide these tools for free.
We are already paying for the data, the DNA, the platform and in many cases, contributing our own hard-earned research. Charging extra for a tree-checking feature (that doesn’t even work right) feels like asking users to fix the foundation of the house they already paid to build.
So, skip the upsell. Use free software. Clean your tree with confidence. And let’s keep our standards higher than their price tags.
Last week, I shared my experience with most of Ancestry.com’s Pro Tools—an add-on offered for $10/month (I got in for $7 with a promotional email). You can read about those features here. Today, I’ll dive into the tool that motivated me to subscribe in the first place: Tree Checker.
If you’ve noticed the new Tree Checker score on your Ancestry tree, you might be curious. Mine showed a 9.1—“Excellent.” That aligns with my belief that my tree is about 90–95% accurate. But let’s be honest: no one has a 100% accurate tree. Without DNA confirmation for every line, there will always be an element of uncertainty. Still, I’m committed to removing the detritus that’s accumulated over years of brick wall chipping, FAN Club research, and lineage society applications.
Back in 1990, I started my tree with 50 people, using a TI-89 cartridge program. By 1995, I was entering data into FamilySearch’s .paf format. When Ancestry came along, I uploaded my work to what’s now the ubiquitous .gedcom. My skills, and my tree, have grown significantly since then. I’ve cleaned up my Swedish, Croatian, French, German, Swiss, and Dutch branches. What remains is my largest line: Great Britain. Before writing my next book, I knew it was time to clean that section.
I regularly back up my Ancestry tree to other programs (Family Tree Maker, Legacy, RootsMagic), all of which offer tree-checking tools. But because Ancestry is my primary research platform, I’ve been hesitant to clean externally and re-sync. So I was hopeful that Tree Checker would finally give me an effective cleanup solution within Ancestry.
Here’s what happened.
Tree Checker: Expectations vs. Reality
When I launched Tree Checker from the dashboard, I was greeted with a gut-punch: 14,000+ possible errors.
The majority were labeled “People with no sources.” I immediately knew what was going on. In Ancestry’s early days, there wasn’t a “web link” option. I got around that by uploading source PDFs to the Gallery or by placing citations in the timeline. Unfortunately, Tree Checker ignores those, unless it’s housed as an official Ancestry “source,” it’s invisible to the system.
But that still left other problem categories:
Possible Duplicates
People with Only Tree Sources
Other Possible Errors
I’ll add here that one of the most helpful “error types” isn’t even under Tree Checker, it’s found under Pro Filters > Family Lines > People Without Relationships. These are individuals floating without connections, often leftovers from attempts to delete a line. I had about 2,000 of these and quickly removed them.
People with Only Tree Sources was next. These were added from others’ trees, unsourced. That’s an easy fix, either delete them or attach a hint. Done.
Possible Duplicates looked daunting at nearly 2,000, but the number was misleading. Triplicates and higher were counted separately, and after filtering, I had fewer than 1,000 to review. Some were legitimate merges (e.g., marriage records auto-adding a new spouse). Others were not duplicates at all: families who reused names after a child died, or multiple “Johann” Harbaughs with different middle names. I worked through them in two days.
The Glitches Begin
After carefully resolving every duplicate, I noticed something troubling: they didn’t disappear from the error list. No matter what I tried, refreshing, logging out, rebooting, clearing cache, Tree Checker continued to show errors I had already corrected. I even tried deleting and re-adding a person. No dice.
Still hoping for results, I moved on to “Other Possible Errors” and found myself stunned.
Ancestry itself was causing many of the flagged issues. For instance, if a child was born in 1937 and enumerated in the 1940 census, Tree Checker would flag it as “Resident listed before birth date.” The kicker? That census record was automatically added by Ancestry in the timeline for 1935. To clear the error, I had to delete 1935’s entry FOR EVERY ONE born between 1936-1940.
Swedish church records were another problem. Ancestry indexes these by range (e.g., 1723–1728). If a child was born in 1724, Tree Checker flagged the 1723 record as occurring before birth. Completely illogical and a huge waste of my time to clean up!
Some new error flags also made no sense:
“Birth/Death dates span more than 10 years” with only one sourced date. What?
“Significant age difference between spouses” um, 2 years!
“Marriage occurred after spouse’s death” when no death date was even given. See the above screenshot proving the error was false.
And here’s the real kicker: even when I corrected the problems, they remained in the count. Over the next three days, my “error total” would inexplicably rise despite spending hours cleaning.
Note that it says there are 2 possible duplicates but none show.
People with only tree sources shows 1 but none are provided.
Under all possible errors the counter states 201 but there is only 1 error showing and it is not an error when you go to that page.
This reminded me of a long ago problem Ancestry had with what was called “Ghost Hints.” You can read my how-to-fix blog about it here. I tried that again but it appears that Ancestry has tightened up security and my fix it no longer worked.
As a genealogist, I dug into the data. I exported the report, analyzed the stats, and discovered something stunning:
75% of the Tree Checker results were false positives. That’s not a helpful tool -that’s noise! Seeing it graphically made me realize I had been sold a product that doesn’t work:
To top it off, this also distorts your overall Tree Checker “score.” I now wonder what my real rating would be if the tool actually worked. With the changes that took, my score reached a 9.4.
The Final Straw
I then turned to the “No Sources” filter and began manually fixing issues from A–Be, X, Y, and Z. That’s when I hit the wall. Even attaching suggested Ancestry hints they no longer removed individuals from the list. Not user error, this was a flat-out malfunction.
That’s when I noticed the word Beta scattered throughout Pro Tools. Beta testing, by definition, is the final phase before a product goes public. Users test real-world functionality and provide feedback. But here’s the problem:
Ancestry released an untested tool to the public and then charged for it.
If you charge admission before the dress rehearsal is done, that’s not Beta testing. That’s profiteering.
But that’s not all! Ancestry then sent me an email with their data about the changes I made to my tree:
What does 300% more duplicates found even mean?! We know I had no duplicates and most of those that they believed were duplicates were not. 84% fewer issues discovered? Does that mean my tree still has 16% undiscovered issues? If so, how would I ever find them when Pro Tools can’t identify them and the counter doesn’t work?
Where Do We Go From Here?
I’m not just disappointed, I’m concerned. It’s clear Ancestry recognizes the problem of flawed user trees. But their solution shouldn’t be charging extra for a broken product.
In a recent webinar, the presenter said she came up with the idea of genealogy coaching. That’s interesting, since I’ve offered coaching on my website for over a decade at a fraction of the price. I believe everyone should have access to their heritage, not just those who can afford a luxury tier. I was also appalled to hear that professional genealogists charge tens of thousands of dollars a year. No, just no!
I use Ancestry daily and plan to continue. But I’ve cancelled my Pro Tools subscription.
Next week, I’ll share how I cleaned up my tree without shelling out extra cash.
Welcome to another installment in my continuing series on genealogical misadventures! Today’s topic: my long, bumpy road with technology.
I’ve always embraced tech—but it didn’t always embrace me back.
Back in college, I took a programming course in PLC. The professor told us to throw out the textbook and “go with our gut.” Let’s just say… my gut wasn’t fluent in code. I had signed up for the course because my then-boyfriend (now husband) raved about it. Mid semester, I switched to a new instructor—Dr. Birkin, a kind man with a charming British accent who actually used the textbook. I passed the class, but the experience left me scarred. We were still programming with punch cards back then, and one typo could bring the whole system down. I managed to do exactly that once—and earned a full hour of death stares from the engineering students.
So, when software for genealogy came along, I dove in eagerly—because at least I wasn’t programming it myself! But it turns out software has its own kind of drama.
My big misstep? Relying on just one platform.
At first, I uploaded everything—sources, photos, notes—into Ancestry.com. It was easy. It was convenient. It was also incredibly risky.
Because here’s the thing: if Ancestry ever disappears (and nothing digital is forever), so does everything I’ve painstakingly added. Paranoia, in genealogy, can be a healthy survival strategy. And that means backing up your work in multiple places.
When Family Tree Maker (FTM) was integrated with Ancestry in its early years, I jumped onboard. But then the sync stopped working. Ancestry blamed FTM. FTM blamed Ancestry. I spent a year caught in the crossfire, and finally gave up. So did Ancestry—they ditched FTM and partnered with RootsMagic instead.
I gave RootsMagic a try. I liked it—until it came time to update my records. One. At. A. Time. It was tedious, and I let it slide. Eventually, that program stopped cooperating too.
I also dabbled with Legacy Family Tree. I appreciated its features, but the downside? It doesn’t sync with Ancestry. My sources were preserved—but not my photos or documents. Still, it remains part of my backup plan.
Then, about three years ago, Family Tree Maker came back around with an offer. After a helpful chat with their support team, I gave them another shot. The sync worked again—thankfully—just as RootsMagic had failed me.
So, what have I learned from this revolving door of software?
Stay current. Stay flexible. And never trust your entire tree to a single platform.
Test new tools. Keep your programs updated. And most importantly, store your research in more than one place—cloud, external drive, software, even printed backups. Because when one system crashes (and eventually, it will), you’ll have something to fall back on.
If you think you’re immune to tech mishaps, I’ll leave you with this: the only thing more painful than lost records… is knowing you had them, once.
This is a continuing in my series on mistakes I made as a beginning genealogist. If you missed the earlier lessons, you can read about my trust issues with online trees, family lore, and source saving habits here, here, and here.
Let’s talk about confidence—or more accurately, the lack of it.
My first family tree was on paper. In 1983, my husband bought a TI-84 computer and a family tree cartridge. It allowed basic data entry but had one glaring flaw: no printer. And with no real internet access at the time, there was no way to share the tree beyond showing someone the screen.
By 1995, I’d discovered FamilySearch.org and quickly entered my 50 or so known family members into their online tree. Then came RootsWeb, and I uploaded my FamilySearch .paf file there. The tech was improving—and so were my skills—but confidence? That was still lagging behind.
I loved experimenting with new tools, but reliable records online were scarce, local training was hit-or-miss, and no one was talking about things like the Genealogical Proof Standard. Source citations? Not really a thing yet. DNA testing for genealogy didn’t exist. And AI—well, that sounded like science fiction.
In hindsight, I’m grateful the tools rolled out gradually. It allowed my learning to grow alongside the technology, making the whole experience feel manageable, even exciting.
Still, I was the new kid on the block. At local library presentations, I was often the youngest person in the room.
I wish I could say the older attendees embraced my enthusiasm, but… not so much. I was mostly ignored, and at times, subtly reminded that I lacked their decades of experience—which, let’s be honest, wasn’t inaccurate.
By the early 2000s, Ancestry.com had entered the scene, and I converted my old .paf file into a .gedcom and uploaded it. And almost immediately, I ran into resistance.
A DAR woman messaged me—clipped, curt, and in all caps—insisting I had made an error and must correct it IMMEDIATELY.
Embarrassed, I complied. I removed the ancestor in question and replied that my tree had been “corrected.”
But about a year later, I revisited that line after new records came online—probate records, in fact. And guess what? My original hunch had been right. So I added the ancestor back.
Not long after, the same woman messaged again, demanding I remove the name. This time, I had proof—and I told her so.
No response. Until a year later, when she messaged me once more, threatening to report me to Ancestry for ignoring her third “polite request.”
This time, I stood my ground. I reminded her that I had previously provided documentation and warned that if she contacted me again, I would be reporting her for harassment.
She didn’t write back.
Now, I’m no longer the youngest in the room. I’m one of the “old genealogists”—and I try hard not to repeat the mistakes made by those who once made me feel small. That’s part of why I’ve written this series: to let beginners know that we’ve all been there.
No one gets everything right. Not at the beginning, not even later. But we get better. We grow through doing, through missteps, through asking questions, and through helping each other.
Confidence in genealogy doesn’t come from having all the answers—it comes from being willing to keep learning. And I hope I never stop.
Alarmed, I drove to one of my local libraries in DeKalb County, Indiana to check if this was just a glitch with the home edition. It wasn’t. No access. Nowhere.
Then I did what any professional genealogist would do: I asked colleagues around the country — and around the world.
In Michigan? Full access. In Wisconsin? Full access.In Texas? Full access. In California? Full access. Even in Germany? Full access.
Everyone except Indiana still had the record set.
Indiana Hoosiers — the very people whose ancestors’ records these are — are now blocked.
And here’s the kicker: Indiana’s new 99-year birth record restriction law doesn’t even take effect until July 1st.
There is absolutely no lawful reason for Ancestry to have prematurely restricted Hoosiers from their own historical records.
Why did Ancestry jump the gun? Who knows. But it stinks to high heaven.
SAVE EVERYTHING. If you find a record, immediately save a copy outside of Ancestry and FamilySearch. I now maintain a separate digital file of all Indiana birth records I’ve located, independent of any online platform.
DON’T TRUST THAT THEY’LL BE THERE TOMORROW. I’ve gone through my family tree twice to make sure I’ve captured every birth certificate between July 1926 and 1944. NOTE: Some were indexed wrong so play around and others were never included, my father-in-law, for example.
SPEAK OUT. Let Ancestry and FamilySearch know that Indiana genealogists will not quietly stand by while access is stripped away without warning or legal justification.
The clock is ticking, and history is being erased in front of our eyes.
Don’t think this affects you because you have no Indiana family? Think about this adaption of Martin Niemoller’s poem with assistance from ChatGPT:
First they sealed the adoption records. Then they erased the mental health histories. Then they locked away the birth, marriage, and death records. Each time, we said, “It’s just one set.” Now the archives stand empty, And we have no memory left to defend.
I will remain vigilant and continue to speak out to preserve all of our history.
I received a great question from reader Molly a few weeks ago that I think many of you might benefit from. Are you frustrated with the cost of subscription based genealogy sites that aren’t so great for graphically representing your tree? Maybe you are keeping all your finds in a notebook because of the high cost or perhaps, worry that the site will close taking your hard work with it.
I share the concerns as I want to have control of my research. That being said, I do pay for subscriptions to many sites because I need that for my work as a professional genealogist. Here’s some options if you do pay for a subscription to:
Ancestry.com – Click on “Tree” on the ribbon, then click on the tree you want to print (if you have more than one tree). I personally like the Horizontal View but you can switch views by accessing the tool bar on the right side of your screen that looks like this:
If you prefer a Vertical tree view just click Vertical. Your other option is a Fan Chart.
I then use my Snipping Tool and clip the tree. I can’t say it will look pretty but it works in a pinch. I take copies with me when I travel to share with family I meet or when I’m going to an archive that I’m not sure I can access my online tree.
FamilySearch.org – you know the site is free, however, everyone and their brother has access which can sometimes be frustrating when a well meaning person insists on adding wrong info to the shared tree. I recommend you clean up what is wrong and then print a fan or pedigree chart. The following is the steps from FamilySearch’s website on how to do that:
“How do I print fan charts and pedigree charts in Family Tree?
You can print fan charts and pedigree from Family Tree. FamilySearch converts the information into a PDF file, which you can save to your computer.
Fan chart and pedigree chart options on the website or the mobile app
Seven-generation fan chart.
Five-generation portrait chart.
Four-generation pedigree chart.
The default print orientation is portrait. However, the landscape orientation better optimizes the presentation of your fan chart. When you send the request to the printer, you can change the orientation.
Steps (website)
From Person Page
Sign in and click Family Tree.
In the drop-down menu, click Tree.
Navigate to the person that you want to use to begin your chart.
Click that person. Click their name to be taken to their person page.
Click the Details tab.
On the right, find the Tools section.
Click Print Options.
Click what you want to print.
A PDF opens in a new tab. Use your browser’s print feature to print it. If your computer has trouble with the PDF file, clear your cache and cookies, or use a different browser.
From Family Tree
You can print from the portrait, landscape, and fan chart views.
Sign in and click Family Tree.
In the drop-down menu, click Tree.
Navigate to the person that you want to use to begin your chart.
Click that person. In the pop-up menu that appears, click Tree. The tree opens with that person as the person-of-focus.
Open the kind of chart that you want to print: Portrait, Landscape, or Fan:
In the top-right, click the chart on display (Portrait, Landscape, Fan Chart, Descendancy, or First Ancestor).
From the menu, click the chart that you want to print. If you select Fan Chart, use the Options icon to specify what information to include. The information is visible in the printed document.
If anyone on the chart has more than one spouse or set of parents, you can change which shows on the printed chart.
Click the Options icon .
Click Print.
The chart opens as a PDF in a new tab. Use your browser’s print feature to print it. If your computer has trouble with the PDF file, clear your cache and cookies, or use a different browser.
On the FamilySearch website, Family Tree generates interactive PDF files for the 4-generation pedigree. You can add or modify information in it.
Changing the PDF file does not change the information in Family Tree. We recommend that you change the information in Family Tree and then print.
Below each name on the chart is a box with the letter F. You can enter an alternate identifier in the box and coordinate the people on the chart with printed family group records.
You cannot alter the width of each generation on the chart.
Steps (mobile)
If your mobile device is set up to print, you can print the pedigree chart or family group records from the Family Tree mobile app.
From within the Family Tree mobile app, tap Tree.
Find the person that you want, and tap his or her name.
If the person has more than one spouse or set of parents, you can change which shows on the printed chart.
Tap Spouses or Parents.
Tap the down arrow for the spouse or parents that you want to print.
Tap Preferred Spouse or Preferred Parents.
Open the charts option:
Android: Below the dark bar that includes the name, scroll to the right and tap Charts.
Apple iOS: Tap the three dots in the top-right corner and then tap More and tap Charts.
Tap the chart that you want.
Send the chart to your printer:
Apple iOS: at the top, tap the 3 dots and click Share. Then tap Print.
Android: tap the 3 dots and then tap Print.
The Family Tree mobile app does not generate interactive PDF files.”
NOTE: This blog was posted on 25 Nov 2023 on the Empowering Genealogists with Artificial Intelligence Facebook group. Since my blog two weeks ago on using AI to write a narrative, I’ve been getting a lot of questions and comments. I’ve been told that AI doesn’t work with some sites; I have found that to be not true. I have also found a temporary work around for footnote/endnote citations that look more like what genealogists use – simply provide this prompt: Please write all footnotes in Chicago format style. You will have to go back and fill in some info, like the enumeration district for censuses, but it will be closer to what we are used to seeing.
I was interested in seeing how a narrative summary with endnotes from various sources that had similar data would be written.
I used the same prompt: You are a professional genealogist and expert writer. Please write a narrative summary with endnotes from the attached file. (AI seems to place all sources at the end, whether you make the request as a footnote or endnote. This could be due to my requested writings being short.) The endnotes for the example below are funky looking because they are sources from sources, meaning the information that was being compared was the main source, like Ancestry.com, and not where the source cited in Ancestry.com came from.
Each request was made using a new message on ChatGPT.
The files I uploaded individually were:
Ancestry.com from Life Story with and without AI. AI selected “What was (region) like when (individual) was (event).”
FamilySearch.org Source/Detail and About
FamilyTreeMaker from Individual Report
LegacyFamilyTree from Other Reports>Individual Summary
MyHeritage.com side view of Family Tree for named individual
Roots Magic from Reports> Individual Summary
The information for all but FamilySearch.org was generated by me over the years. The data was always entered into Ancestry.com, then synched with RootsMagic and FamilyTreeMaker. A gedcom from Ancestry was uploaded to both LegacyFamilyTree and MyHeritage so no media is available on either of those sites. FamilySearch.org does include a minimal amount of information from me but most of the data was generated by family members.
I then gave ChatGPT the following prompt:
Today you are an expert data analysis and professional genealogist. Prioritize fidelity to the information below; dry recitation, avoid editorialization. Process the data sentence-by-sentence, from beginning to end. Extract this structured data: “Name”, “Relationship”, “Event Year and Location Baptism”, “Event Year and Location Marriage”, “Event Year and Location Children”, “Event Year and Location Death”. The response should have the header row in line 1: “Data From:”, “Name”, “Relationship”, “Baptism” “Marriage”, “Children Name & Birth Year”, “Death”. Column A should have the header row: “Ancestry.com With AI”, “Ancestry.com Without AI”, “FamilySearch About”, “FamilySearch Source & Detail”, “Family Tree Maker”, “Legacy Family Tree”, “MyHeritage.com”, “RootsMagic”. Enclose all cells or fields in quotation marks; omit, ignore, and avoid commas and other punctuation in the original data in your response in an attempt to keep the CSV error-free. Display dates in military format meaning day month spelled out and not by number and year. Display your response in a code window for easy copy-and-paste.
The results are attached above. I’ve color coded them to denote synch (pale green), gedcom (blue), not my own data (yellow).
Interesting how the diacritical marks are shown by Ancestry, Legacy, MyHeritage, and RootsMagic. FamilyTreeMaker omitted them. The apostrophe before and after August was originally quotation marks. Not sure if that is standardization issues or software/technical limitations.
I was surprised that Ancestry, which has the full location for events, simplifies to only provided county and state. The complete marriage location would be Baileytown, Westchester Township, Porter, Indiana. I wondered why Westchester Township was omitted and discovered I had never entered that in any of my generated trees. I had mis-entered death location as Chesterton Township instead of Chesterton, Westchester Township. This is a nice way to enhance and correct your data. (Chesterton is actually in three townships but the events occurred in Westchester).
All of the sites had the names of children. FamilySearch provided the most information (child’s name and dates). Legacy and FamilyTreeMaker both named all children. Not sure why RootsMagic didn’t specify. And now we know MyHeritage considers six children as “several.” Personally, I’d call that a handful plus!
I can see another use for this when trying to figure out where online public trees vary from yours and what source info (if any) they might have. It’s also a nice clean timeline that takes little effort to create.
Next I decided to take the Excel info, re-enter it into ChatGPT and give the original narrative prompt again. Since every narrative had been slightly different I wondered what the final product with the full information available would be. (I should mention I did the first narrative a few weeks ago in RootsMagic and there were three hallucinations but the rest I did on Wednesday and there were none.) Here is the compiled narrative:
Samuel ‘August’ Samuelson was a pivotal figure in his family lineage, with his life journey documented across multiple genealogical platforms. Born on January 3, 1839, in Stora Haddebo, Västra Harg, Östergötland, Sweden, Samuel was the son of Samuel Howard Erickson and Anna Elisabet ‘Lisa’ Torstensdotter. His baptism, a significant event in his early life, is consistently recorded in these sources, reaffirming the importance of his Swedish origins.
Samuel’s life took a significant turn when he married on February 17, 1871. While the exact location of his marriage varies slightly in records, ranging from Baileytown to Westchester Township in Porter, Indiana, it’s clear that this event marked his transition into family life in the United States.
The couple was blessed with several children, though the records differ in detailing their names and birth years. FamilySearch Source & Detail provides the most comprehensive list, including Johan Victor (1872-1921), John Louis (1873-1919), Alfrida (1874-1886), Ada Emilia (b. 1876), and two sons named Gustav Theodore (the first born in 1877 and died the same year, and the second born in 1879). This detail adds depth to our understanding of Samuel’s role as a father and the legacy he left behind.
Samuel’s life came to an end on January 14, 1908, in Chesterton, Porter, Indiana. The consistency of this date across multiple records emphasizes its accuracy and the end of an era in the Samuelson family history.
Endnotes:
Baptism and Birth: Samuel’s baptism and birth details are consistently recorded across Legacy Family Tree, Family Tree Maker, FamilySearch Source & Detail, MyHeritage.com, Ancestry.com (with and without AI), and RootsMagic.
Marriage: The date of marriage is consistently noted as February 17, 1871, but the location varies slightly, as recorded in different databases.
Children: The most detailed account of his children is provided by FamilySearch Source & Detail, with other databases offering varying levels of detail.
Death: Samuel’s death date is uniformly recorded as January 14, 1908, across all sources, with slight variations in the location’s specificity.
I’m blogging early this weekend as I’ve got too many events scheduled! Next Saturday, my blog will be late. I’m blaming it on the time change.
There is nothing worse than trying to solve a brick wall for commonly named individuals. For years, I’ve not been able to go back further than the parents of my 3rd great-grandfather, Edward Adams. Actually, I still don’t know his parents’ names but I definitely know who his grandparents were!
I don’t use DNA much for my own family genealogy because my maternal side were fairly recent immigrants to the U.S. and few have matched me. On my paternal side, I seem to get most matches for my maiden name and I have no brick walls there, going back as far as I could with remaining French and German records. I have tremendous issues, though, with my paternal grandmother’s lines; I was always told she was Irish, English, Welsh, and Scottish. My DNA confirms those ethnicities but the names where I reach a dead end are Adams, Byrd, Cole, Dennis, and Morrison. Too many in the same place at the same time!
Last month, I was pleasantly surprised when I decided to take a look to see if I had any new matches. I had a hunch that I was related through the Sylvanus Adams line. Although it was just a hypothesis, it made sense as my Edward Adams, who had died intestate (why do all my people do this?!), left behind young children in rural Perry, Ohio in 1822. A man named Evi Adams settled the estate. Evi died soon after Edward. Evi was an interesting name to me so I poked around and found several in New Jersey where Edward’s wife had originated. Now New Jersey is not a small land a mass so I was even more intrigued when I learned the Evi’s were all in Sussex County, the same place as Edward’s wife.
I then made a tree from the youngest Evi I found living there in the late 1700s and based on birth years, it looked plausible that Sylvanus and Elizabeth Crowell Adams could be my 5th great-grandparents.
I attached Edward to one of their sons with a disclaimer that this was just a hypothesis. And there my mystery sat for years! Until February, when finally, along with 7 newfound “cousins” I indeed do link to Elizabeth Crowell and Sylvanus Adams.
But the man I guessed was Edward’s father was not correct. There were gaps in children so I suspected that was where my 4th great-grandfather had once been, perhaps dying young. I found Sylvanus’ will to see if there were additional children or grandchildren of deceased children named but nope, he even left out a known son Isaiah, who had left New Jersey for Ohio. Hmmm, not the same county where Edward was but I still tried to place him as my great-grandfather; it didn’t work.
I then found a further DNA match with an Ichabod and Sarah Sumner Crittenden. I’ve been trying to find which of their daughters married a son of Sylvanus and that’s where things got stopped again. The Crittenden’s were from Connecticut and had a daughter, Hannah, who married James Adams in Massachusetts. Could James be an unnamed son of Sylvanus? Possibly, but the James and Hannah Adams family remained in New England. That could explain why James was not listed in Sylvanus’ will as it appears that only children who were close by to him in New Jersey were named. Then I found a James Adams in Sussex, New Jersey in 1793 but he was married to a Sarah Dunn. Arghhh! But here it gets interesting because Sarah Dunn’s parents were also from Connecticut.
I am THRILLED that I have found Edward’s grandparents after all these years and even happier to know I was correct in guessing who they were. I just wish I could figure out who his parents were.
I want to pass on this tip if you find yourself stuck with a brick wall ancestor. While I was writing my John-Thomas Duer relationship analysis I used Ancestry’s ThruLines and created a chart to place in the paper as additional proof.
If you have DNA tested with Ancestry.com then ThruLines is available to you. To access, sign on and then click DNA on the ribbon. Click ThruLines.
Here’s where it’s advantageous to have a tree on Ancestry – for all the individuals that you’ve included in your tree for several generations, their information will appear on ThruLines in a white box by their relationship to you.
I know that I’m genetically related to both of my parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents from my DNA Matches on Ancestry and other sites so I scroll down the page and begin to investigate people I have placed in my tree but need further proof of lineage. Perhaps records are just not available or sketchy. Perhaps they are a brick wall.
For my example, I’m using a line I haven’t thoroughly researched. I have a hypothesis that Mary Whitlock and John Cole were my 5th great-grandparents. The ThruLine boxes for them appear at the bottom of the page:
Ancestry.com ThruLines Option to Investigate
Interestingly, I have NO DNA Matches for John Cole but 3 for who I thought his wife was, Mary Whitlock.
This means I need to check out Mary Whitlock further. Click on the name box and you will see a descending tree chart. I have a pic of my connection to one of the three DNA matches:
ThruLines Page 2
The above chart has been clipped – I’m not showing you the entire chart that Ancestry presents because I’m only going to look at one match at a time and start with the one that is closest to me. My Mary “Polly” Dennis married 5 times and had children with 3 of her husbands. I recognized in the chart above that Sarah Elder is my half 2nd great-grandaunt because Sarah’s dad was Owen Elder; my line descends from Edward Adams. Two other DNA Matches I didn’t clip Show descent from husband John Hodge. My relationship shows as half because both Catharine Adams and Sarah E Elder got half their DNA from Polly and the other half from their dads, who were not the same individual.
I’m not sure why Ancestry needs me to EVALUATE the information as I had that in my tree already and I thought they would recognize it. If you come across that, here’s how to get the chart looking complete:
Step 1. Click on the individual to EVALUATE. You must start at the top, with the oldest generation first. Once you click EVALUATE this page will appear:
Evaluate Page 2
As you can see in the picture, My Main Tree is an option and that’s my personal family tree. Why Ancestry didn’t automatically connect to it I don’t understand. You don’t need to make any decision on this page, just click Next at the bottom.
The next page looks like this:
Evaluate Page 2
Obviously, I’m going to click the button in front of Sarah A Elizabeth Elder in My Main Tree as that’s my tree. Once the button is clicked, on the bottom “Add” to the tree is shown. Click that.
You now need to make a decision as to who the spouse will be. This is important for the DNA process. Here are my options and it automatically defaults to the first marriage. I will be clicking the button in front of Mary Polly Dennis and Owen Elder:
Evaluate Page 3
You’ll get a message from Ancestry that looks like this if it worked correctly:
For a brief second a message displays stating “We’re adding (individual) to your (tree name).” When it’s processed it will display this message:
Evaluate Page 4
When you click “View Profile,” the individual will pop up as a page in your tree. But this is a problem as I already had the woman in my tree!
Next, you are going to have to merge the new information with your old information.
Top of Newly Added Page
Click “Merge with duplicate” which is displayed right under 2nd great-grandaunt.
This page will display:
Merge Page 1
Ancestry recognizes I already had the same person in the tree so I just need to click ”Select.” If Ancestry doesn’t recognize the individual, type the individual exactly as you named them in your tree. For example, perhaps you entered Sarah as Sarah E. Elder instead of Sarah A. Elizabeth Elder. Type what you originally had and it will display the name, birth and death information for the person you typed. Compare and if you are sure you have selected the correct individual, click “Merge” as seen below:
Merge Page 2
Now, the new info is connected to the old and the person is one on your tree.
Within 24 hours, when you back to ThruLines, the individuals will be displayed just like your own data was so you can clip and use the chart as you like. Here’s what it will look like but you’ll have to go through and evaluate all of the individuals in descending order to get the chart complete.
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