Ancestry.com
View company profile →
Great records but massive misinformation in "hints"!
Anyone wanting accurate information about their family history research needs to read this (yes, it's wordy but it may help you not waste time or possibly money). There are very serious problems with the hyped "hints" feature (which is pushed on users). As an avid history researcher and amateur genealogist (I am working towards a professional certification in the future), I am no stranger to ancestry.com....I've spent thousands of hours on it over the years. I've done research for decades, in the US and Europe, handled documents that are hundreds of years old, learned to decipher late medieval documents, and am a member of more genealogical organizations than I can count. Accuracy and documentation is critical to genealogists, but you don't have to be a professional to want correct information. I never thought I'd have reason to criticize ancestry.com, since it does offer (albeit for a price) millions of easily accessible online records, but in the last few years I've been mortified to watch it turn into what I see as the "JUNK FOOD" of the genealogical world. The reason - its VERY flawed "hint" system, which prioritizes the claims of its everyday members, regardless of its accuracy. According to my IT-brilliant relatives, the hint system seems to use programs whose algorithms simply count up the times a claim is posted by users, and VOILA! A hint! Then, the program puts that claim at the very top of the hint list, above all others (including actual, reliable documentation that often shows that the top hint is wrong). Unsuspecting or inexperienced users cannot help but see this high priority recommendation, and frequently accept the hint, unaware of its mistakes. Then the program sees that others are making the same claim, and makes it even a stronger hint, and the cycle continues, perpetuating and accelerating misinformation. I have seen this repeatedly in public trees posted on ancestry.com, the world's largest provider of genealogical info! To demonstrate how disruptive this can be, on a recent trip to Europe, I went to a historic site associated with a well-known aristocratic family. The place was not the home of an American immigrant, but in conversation with a frustrated local, I learned that all of a sudden Americans seemed to think it was. I checked ancestry.com, and sure enough, it was a common claim. So whether or not ancestry.com originated this myth, I have no clue, but clearly it was repeating the inaccuracies. As if that's not enough, here are more problems that, in my opinion, are huge reasons to distrust the ancestry.com hint system. 1. It's a fact that many family lines have multiple people of the same name. A hint attributed to the name can be placed on the wrong person, and yet not appear for the right person. How does THAT happen? Furthermore, the hints provide "buttons" that allow users to do one of 3 things; accept it, set it aside as a "maybe", or reject it. After using this feature for years I'm convinced it's a waste of time; otherwise it would not continually pop up for people it doesn't apply to. I could describe more things wrong with the rejection reasons options being totally inadequate and, frankly, useless, but I will move on. 2. The system puts forward hints that contain persons that don't exist! If someone adds an imaginary person to a tree, and others start copying the fictition, it then becomes an even bigger priority hint. Typically these personae non gratae are creations of users that combine data for two or more similarly named persons, and whose lives overlapped. Since such a hint might just have a couple of verifiable details, it's accepted as total truth and posted. As described above, the misinformation then goes viral. 3. The hint system put forward documentation and data for people living decades and even CENTURIES before or after the person whose hint is posted. How that can happen is beyond comprehension. For example let's say your ancestor is Robert Bell of Scotland, born 1732 and died 1784. I would not be surprised to see the hint of Sir Robert Bell, English Member of Parliament (who died over 200 years earlier in 1577) might pop up! I have had this happen repeatedly (not with the Robert Bells...I use this as a demonstration), but with a majority of the my family tree people on ancestry.com; I'm bombarded with 19th c. hints for 17th c. ancestors. There are other anomalies and snags in the hint system, but at this point I have finished making my point. So, word to the wise; if you decide to subscribe to ancestry.com, don't accept hints that come from other family trees on the service without checking all data! I use other trustworthy sites (Geni, americanancestors.com, findmypast.com, and Family Search (I think the last is affiliated with ancestry.com). Good luck to all.