How accurate is ANCESTORY.COM?

Question

are these geneology sites accurate for the most part?

Answer 1

not even close

Answer 2

Ancestry.com is a great place, and it has alot of accurate info, you just have to make sure the info you decide to hang on to has documentation to back it up.....i.e. census', birth and death records, marriage records etc. Sometimes names you are searching may have been misspelled in those documets or dob may have been misprinted.

For instance, my GGGgrandmother's first name was Timanda, on some census' info she is listed as Amanda.

Her dob was listed as 1834 through 1836, depending on the time of year the census was taken.

It takes time and alot of patience, but Ancestry is a great place.

Answer 3

its ok use soundtext as sometimes the spelling is sometimes out

Answer 4

I love Ancestry.Com for its records.

Now, information in family trees on ANY website, free or paid, must be viewed as CLUES not as fact.  The trees are subscriber submitted and mostly not documented or poorly documented.  You might see different info on the same people from different subscribers.  However, even when you see the same info repeatedly by many different subscribers on the same people that is absolutely no guarantee at all it is correct.  A lot of people copy without verifying.  

Ancestry World Tree is their oldest and largest.  One World Tree, I feel, is nothing but trash.  I love their Public Member Tree program. You can put in photos and bring forward records.  Also it will give you hints of records they have on some persons. However, when the hint is someone else's family tree, it definitely needs to be checked out.

There is no way the people who operate these websites can know what you submit is accurate or not.  Actually, you can make up a lot of stuff and put it in your family tree and they wouldn't know the difference.

When they started the One World Tree program, they brought forth information people had submitted to Ancestry World Tree.  They have people shown with all the different information subscribers have submitted on them.  However, I have seen at least twice where they combined two people into one.

It doesn't do any good to tell Ancestry.Com of an error in family trees. They just tell you to contact the submitter. In other words, people who operate any of  the websites are not there to determine what subscribers submit are accurate or not. I would imagine they don't feel it is their place to get involved in a differences between the various subscribers to their website.

However, I don't think there is another website that you can get all U.S censuses through 1930.  The 1940 and later are not available to the public yet. They have U. K. censuses also.  They have transcribed all the censuses but you can look at the original images.  There are mistakes in their transcriptions but when you see the original images you can have pity on the transcribers.  Also there are mistakes on the original images.  There is a way of sending them a correction.  You'll probably find it as time goes by.

Also on some of the passenger lists you can pull up the original list and in some cases a photo of the ship.

Answer 5

It is pretty accurate. I have found some really great information on the site. The problem is, you have to pay for everything. My local library does ancestry research every month and I am going to start doing that. Maybe that is an option for you.

Edit: Based on your additional details comment - You really need to engage your family. The ancestary.com records will give you information based on close proximity or close names.

Answer 6

The answer comes in two parts: (1) If you are using original source records (census, passenger lists, etc.) and you look at the original, not just the transcription, you are at least getting whatever your ancestors told the people asking the questions. This is reasonably accurate, although things like the parents' marriage date and the birth date of the first child may be less than 100% truthful.

(2) If you're using OneWorldTree, GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) definitely applies. Unless the people supplying the compiled information did meticulous research, it's useful more as a place to start looking for evidence.

Answer 7

I don't understand what would not be accurate.  You can see the actual census, military records, etc. so the only error would be if the person writing it wrote something wrong back then or your relatives lied.  Social security death index is obviously accurate also.  There is always room for human error but it is not like the site is making things up.  Be careful that you found the right person because many times you will find the same name with the same year of birth but it won't be your relative.  

The "trees" that other people submit, I have no clue about.  No one else in my famiy is on ancestry.com

Answer 8

Mostly accurate, but you should always verify information at another website or from another source.

Answer 9

The records are pretty accurate as they are the originals that have been scanned and transcribed.  The trees are submitted by other people just like you have yours on there, and those are subject to the validity of the research done by the person who submitted it.  Many people do not do real research.  Many people just copy and paste other people's bad research and that is unfortunate.  Ancestry.com's database will try to make connections between your tree and others, but again, those connections will only be as accurate as the other trees, which as you know, is not always so accurate.  Use those trees as clues to follow, but do not take anything as gospel until you can prove it.

Answer 10

This site is pretty accurate.  You may be able to see information submitted by lots of individuals who have done a lot of research on their families.  It's fun and very interesting if you find someone from your family on the site.

Most of the information has been submitted by people like you.  If you find facts that you know are incorrect you could report the inaccuracies.   That would help others.

Good Luck and have fun looking for your ancestors.