What's Actually Wrong with Ancestry.com: Hundreds of Incorrect Hints

Really, ACOM? Is Laudel, Vest-Agder, Norway
really in Denmark?

Excuse me while I rant for a moment about how once again ACOM's nonsensical system makes for inefficient genealogy work.

I just got literally hundreds of hints for my Norwegian branch and so far not a single one is accurate. The hints system seems to go off of name and dates only, not locations. I get that people move around and shouldn't be defined by one location... but when I have a birth/baptism location for someone in my tree, why is it giving me hints for births/baptisms in a completely different county or sometimes even nation?! The system doesn't understand how repetitive Scandinavian names are, because they used patronymic names, there will be thousands of Lars Gundersens, for example, and dozens of them born in or around 1833. That doesn't mean someone who was clearly born in Norway matches a birth/baptism record from Denmark! Why are locations not included in the criteria for hints?

It would be fair enough if I was getting a Denmark hint for a marriage when the individual was born in Norway - it's not impossible an individual moved from Norway to Denmark in between their birth and marriage. It also wouldn't be unreasonable if I had no location entered for a birth. But I'm talking about Denmark birth/baptism records popping up for people who have a birth/baptism location as Norway. Likewise, a lot of Norway records are popping up too but they are all in the wrong county!

If it were just a handful of hints, it would not be a big deal. But I now have to go through literally hundreds of hints and make sure they are truly bogus before I delete them. If I could just hit "ignore" it might not be so bad but on half the Norway hints, the location isn't listed until you view the record, which means I can't just look at the hint overview and click ignore, I have to open up the record, compare the locations, then hit ignore.

Thanks for making a whole bunch of tedious busy work for me, ACOM!

What's Actually Wrong With Ancestry.com: Adding Non-Indexed Images

I often come to the defense of Ancestry.com because frankly, they get accused of a lot of things which simply aren't true. When this happens, I get accused of believing Ancestry.com can do no wrong. But this is far from the truth, I have a lot of criticism for Ancestry.com and since I have already taken my complaints to them via their feedback and customer support many times and nothing ever gets resolved, I am instead going to use my blog as my outlet. So I certainly will not deny that Ancestry.com customer service is terrible.

Otherwise, some of my complaints may seem minor, and indeed they are not worth cancelling my subscription over. The fact of the matter remains that Ancestry.com has the biggest genealogy record database on the internet and therefore is a valuable resource. But when you're trying to do time consuming work on your tree, it's the little things like this which can really inhibit your work flow and when you're paying about $300 a year for a service, I think it's fair to expect basic problems like this to get resolved quickly.

Note the blank events the system creates instead of
attaching the citation to existing events. I leave them
blank so I know which ones to delete but the system
gives you the option to fill them in during attachment.

Today, I'm going to talk about the feature that allows you to add a non-indexed image to your tree. While this feature in itself was a great idea, it's got some major bugs in it that make it almost not even worth using.

For starters, it won't allow you to attach the image to an existing fact (shown right) and instead creates a new one. This means if you're trying to add it as a citation for an existing birth event, for example, it will create a new preferred fact for the birth and your original fact will be made the alternate fact. Annoying, right? You then have to edit the citation to switch it over to the correct, original birth fact but this is not easy since, for some reason, the citation did not save the title of the source! If it's the first time you're saving this source, you have to create a new source with the title but at least once you've added it, from then on you can just select it from the drop down menu when adding this source again in the future. Of course, in order to save the citation you also have to enter something into the "Detail" field. This is a problem with many sources, even those indexed - if they do not have a "detail" entered by Ancestry.com's system, you have to enter it yourself when editing the citation.

Once you've finally edited the citation so it has a title, detail, and is attached to the correct facts, you then have to delete the new facts that the system incorrectly created. Because it didn't just create a new birth fact, it also created an alternate name fact.

There are three Tobias Leechs in my tree but two don't have
birth or death dates yet, how do I tell them apart? Suffix of
I, II, or III don't appear.

If all this weren't enough of a pain in the ass, pray you never have to attach the image to an individual who shares a name with someone else in your tree unless you already have a birth or death date entered for at least one of them. The screenshot to the left should show how, in the drop down list of people in your tree to select from, there is no way to distinguish two people with the same name unless they have a birth and death date. Despite the fact that these individuals have been entered with a "suffix" title like Sr. or Jr. or I, II, and III, these suffixes do not appear on the list, making them rather useless in these circumstances. Even when there is a birth or death date entered, be sure to remember which one it is you're attaching it to. I believe this is a problem when attaching any record to an individual selected from the drop down list, even an indexed record. Allowing the suffix to appear on the drop down list should be a quick, simple fix in the system yet the problem has remained for as long as I've been a member since 2008.

So, if you're going to criticize Ancestry.com, here is something that is honestly wrong with it.

Of Unknown Origin

Probably all American have branches in their tree which dead end in the US. How do you determine what their origins might have been when you can't find the immigrant ancestor for that line? There's a few things that will give you clues.

With a high percentage of British DNA, do I maybe have
more British branches than I thought?

One of them is DNA. Of course, a DNA test won't tell you "this branch came from here" and I wouldn't recommend getting a test done just for this purpose but an autosomal DNA test will help you determine your ethnic makeup. It's important to keep in mind though that it's possible to have an ancestor you happened to not inherit any DNA from, especially the more distantly you are related. But sometimes, you might come across an unexpected ethnicity, or perhaps have a higher percentage of something than expected. This could give you an idea of what those unknown branches could be. For example, my British heritage came back with a higher percentage than expected so I'm wondering if maybe a number of my unknown branches are of British origin. Of course, we need something more to go on than this but it's something to consider if you have already done a DNA test.

Another thing that will help you determine the origins of a branch is where they lived in the US and when. Almost all the branches of unknown origin in my tree dated within the US to at least the early 19th century, which means I'm looking for their immigrant ancestors from probably the 18th or maybe even 17th century. That pre-dates the Scandinavian immigration period of the mid 19th century to the Midwest, as well as the Italian wave of immigration in the 19th and 20th centuries, so that rules them out despite them being a part of my DNA makeup (I already have these documented in my tree but now I know I have no others). Plus most of my branches with unknown origins were from Pennsylvania and 18th century Pennsylvania was mostly English or Welsh Quakers and Germans or Swiss Germans, with smaller portions of Scots-Irish and Dutch. Again, this is looking good for British. Additionally, sometimes more specific locations, especially early settlements, can give you an idea of the origins of the community. For example, in early Franconia Township, Montgomery County, PA the community was almost entirely of German or Swiss German origin so I know all my ancestors there were likely German. This is why it's so important to learn about the history of the locations in your tree and about immigration and migration patterns.

Similarly, sometimes an ancestor's church or burial place can be a dead giveaway of their origins. Mennonites were normally German or Swiss German, Quakers were English or sometimes Welsh, although in early PA, these two groups were known to convert to one or the other. Presbyterian was often British but it was not unusual for German Reformed churches to become Presbyterian later so it's important to learn what the church's denomination was at the time your ancestors attended. Something like a "First German Church" is a dead giveaway.

You can also get an idea of their origins by their surnames, using tools like Ancestry.com's Name Meaning Look Up. Of course, names could be subject to change but in combination with the above knowledge, it may help narrow down the options. And sometimes, names which weren't anglicized can be a dead giveaway. I have a few names in my tree which are clearly German, even though I haven't found the immigrant ancestor yet, I know that branch is German. Likewise with a few Scottish names. Sometimes, even a first name can be the indicator. I have a "Willem" in my tree which is the Dutch spelling of William so they must be Dutch even if I haven't found their immigrant ancestor yet.

Lastly, you may also be able to get an idea of their origins by looking at the families they married into. While it was not unusual for people of early, small communities to be forced to marry outside their faith or culture, it was more common for people to marry within their faith and culture so who they married might be a good indicator of their cultural background, especially when comparing who their siblings married too.

Combine all of this together and with some branches, you may be able to say with reasonable certainty where they probably originated from. Here's a quick checklist:

• DNA
• Where/when they lived in the US
• Religious orientation
• Names (surnames or even given names)
• Background of families they married into

Discuss this further at GeneaBoards.

Seeking Margaret Ann McCracken Mills Bentley

New discovers in my own tree are fewer and farther between so to fill the gaps, I have also been periodically researching my husband's tree (as well as my sister-in-law's tree). This has been difficult because my husband has zero interest in genealogy - he doesn't mind me working on it but he doesn't know much about his family beyond his parents and doesn't see why he should. I've tried to tell him about my discoveries in his family tree but he just shrugs his shoulders. Sometimes, he pretends to be interested for my sake but I know he's just indulging me.

1901 Census of Bentley
family.
Click to enlarge

Anyway, I hit a roadblock rather quickly when looking for my mother-in-law's paternal grandparents, Francis (Frank) William and Margaret Ann Bentley. I quickly traced Frank's lineage back several generations but I didn't even know Margaret's maiden name, just that she was born in Salford, England around 1868.

In the 1901 census (left), I found them living in Salford with several children, three of whom were listed as Frank's stepchildren, Thomas, Sarah and Albert Mills. I also found an 1897 marriage index for Francis William Bentley to Margaret Ann Mills.

So is Margaret's maiden name Mills or is it her name from her first marriage? I don't know why I didn't just order the marriage record to see if her father's name was on it. Trying to cut corners, I guess. But Margaret married Frank in Salford when she was 29 and I couldn't find any earlier census records of an unmarried Margaret Mills born in Salford about 1868, even though she should theoretically be on the 1871, 1881, and 1891 censuses. So I was thinking it was more likely Margaret was married previously to a man by the name of Mills, given the names of Frank's stepchildren. There's also no record of Frank being married before Margaret so it's unlikely the Mills children are his orphaned stepchildren from a previous marriage of his own. Unfortunately, the children are too young to be found on the 1891 census so trying to trace Margaret through them is not possible.

1891 Census of Mills family

In the 1891 census, there are two married Margaret Mills who were born in the right area around the right time, one of them was married to Richard Mills and the other to Albert Mills in Oldham (just outside Manchester/Salford). Already, I am leaning towards Albert because we know Frank's stepson's name was the same. Sure enough, later census records confirm Richard Mills and his wife still living together when Margaret had married Frank so that rules out Richard. To further support the idea that Albert Mills from Oldham is the guy I'm looking for, I can't find him in the censuses after 1891 and there is a death index of what looks like him in 1895, two years before Margaret married Frank Bentley (but not before Albert Jr. was born the same year).

Another tree suggested that Margaret's maiden name was Warburton so I then found an 1889 marriage in the England & Wales FreeBMD Index suggesting Albert Mills had married Margaret Ann Warburton in Manchester. But the way the index works is by listing everyone on the same page without telling you who married who. However, the fact that they were on the same page (below, right) must not be a coincidence, right? The date fits, the names fit, the location fits.

Incorrect marriage index of Margaret Ann Warburton

Wrong! I tried to order the record under Margaret's name only to be told the record didn't exist. What? So I ordered it under Albert's name and it turns out, Albert had married the other woman on the list: Sarah Ann Weedle. Who did Margaret Ann Warburton marry? You may notice on the index listing to the left, there are five names listed, which is unusual because it's uneven amount and marriages come in couples, polygamy being illegal. As it turns out, Margaret Ann Warburton was transcribed on the incorrect page. If you view the original document, it says Vol. 8d, Page 358 but it was transcribed as Page 858, thus incorrectly listing her along with Albert Mills! So this Margaret Ann Warburton has NO connection to Albert Mills and this is why it's so important to look at the original document, not just the index. Looking at the index for Page 358, it looks like Warburton married either Daniel Silk or Christopher Harland. This is also why it's so important to be careful about what is added to other trees! I should really know better on both counts but everything did seem to add up at first.

Hopefully correct marriage index of Margaret Ann.

It still seems likely to me that Mills was Margaret's name from a first marriage since Frank has stepchildren with that name. And maybe it was the Albert Mills in Oldham she was married to - after all, the census of them in 1891 does list his wife as Margaret A. Mills, not Sarah. So where is the record for the correct Albert Mills marrying Margaret Ann? I don't know why but finding the likely candidate took some digging. I had to search only within the England & Wales Free BMD Index and restrict all the fields to "exact", then entered Albert Mills, married between 1887 and 1891 in Oldham. Then I did another one for Salford and finally found the record to the right. This makes sense because even though Albert was born in Oldham and he and Margaret lived in Oldham, Margaret was born in Salford. Additionally, I knew I'd seen the name McCracken somewhere else. Take a look at who is listed with Albert and Margaret Mills in the 1891 census above: a "visitor" Sarah McCracken.

I have since ordered Margaret's marriage record to Frank, which is what I should have just done in the first place but I thought finding her first marriage record would be more likely to give me her maiden name. I'm hoping that the full record for her marriage to Frank names her father, thus finally confirming her maiden name. Hopefully, it is McCracken and I will have redeemed myself in the eyes of the genealogy gods who had apparently forsaken me and taken me down a wayward path called Warburton.

In the mean time, I did some more research on McCracken and found Margaret's father was from Scotland. Excited, I told my husband that his mother may have had a Scottish ancestor and what does he tell me? "I already knew that." I must have looked aghast because he laughed and said "Oh, sorry, I meant to say 'Oh my God, that's brand new information!'" (Kudos to anyone who gets the 'Friends' reference).

On one hand, I'm glad because it confirms that I am on the right path with McCracken. On the other hand, I feel like strangling my husband for not telling me sooner.

Interesting Clippings #11: Remember Your Deceased

The Pittsburgh Press, December 9, 1913.

While I was looking for an obituary in the Pittsburgh Press of my 2nd great grandmother, the one who died of acute alcoholism, I spotted an interested ad beneath the list of death notices in which a photographer was advertising his services to photograph the deceased or floral offerings. It may seem morbid and wildly inappropriate to take a photo of a corpse to us but in history, post-mortem photography was acceptable to society when often, it may be the only photograph of a loved one the family might have. It's popularity decreased in the 20th century with the introduction of "snapshot" cameras like the Kodak Brownie in 1900 which made photography easy and affordable to the masses. So I was a little surprised to see this advertised in 1913 but Wikipedia assures me that formal memorial pictures were still being produced into the 20th century.

On another note, I feel like the genealogy gods are against me today. My 2nd great grandmother Anna Jane (Russell) Bauer died December 7, 1913 in Pittsburgh and I was hoping to find an obituary in the Pittsburgh Press from December 8th or 9th (hence how I found today's interesting clipping), but probably more likely the 8th. Frustratingly, the paper for December 8th and only December 8th, of all days, is missing! The 9th has no obituary for her. I even checked the 10th but by then, there don't seem to be any listings going back as far as the 7th. I actually didn't have high hopes for finding an obituary for Anna, simply because I'm pretty confident she was disowned by her family and died alone. They did not even pay for her to have a headstone. But I thought maybe even the lack of an obituary would give me more insight into just how strongly her family felt about their detachment from her. However, I can't even confirm that there was no obituary since the one paper I need to see is missing!

Confirming Hunches

Don't you just love when you find a record that confirms a hunch you've had for a while? I had one of these moments last night when my mom messaged me to let me know that the death certificates we ordered from the Pennsylvania Department of Health back in July/August finally came in. Anyone who has ordered anything from the PA DOH knows how slow they are to fill requests but I can't really complain considering they're only $3 a piece. When I ordered an Alabama death certificate, it had cost something like $30 but it arrived within a week. So "you get what you pay for" is obviously at work here.

Death certificate for Caroline's son showing her maiden
name as something looking like "Wahr".

Offline genealogy isn't easy for me since I live in England but only have one branch that came from England. Getting records sent to England isn't cheap so I always have them sent to my mom in Pennsylvania. Last night, she sent me a message saying the records had come in and started rattling off some of the details on them. When she said "George's mother's maiden name Wake or Wahe" I got excited and asked "Wahr?!" She replied "could be!" and I knew I'd struck gold. Let me backtrack and explain why.

The Bauer branch of my tree hasn't been easy to research. My grandfather had effectively been abandoned by his father when he was a child and though they reconnected later in life, I don't think they ever got particularly close. So my grandfather didn't know a whole lot about his father's ancestry. On top of that, I've tackled obstacles like the family being missing from the 1910 census and my second great grandfather sharing the exact same name as someone else roughly of his age with two sisters who have the same names as his sisters (more on this later).

I'd found that my third great grandfather, August Bauer, had been from Germany, settled in Butler County, PA as a child and then in his 20's began moving south into Pittsburgh. In 1860, he was living unmarried in Allegheny City near the post office of Perrysville and by 1870, he was married to a woman named Caroline, had a few kids, and had moved deeper into the heart of Allegheny City, which has since been incorporated into Pittsburgh. Caroline then died before 1900, meaning I can't find her on the PA DOH Death Indices which start in 1906. So how was I going to find out more about Caroline? Ordering the death certificates of her children might tell me her maiden name but while I waited for the PA DOH to take it's time merry retrieving them, I did some browsing of census records.

I knew August was unmarried in 1860 while living near Perrysville which meant he probably didn't meet and marry his wife Caroline while still in Butler County. I knew when and where Caroline was born thanks to census records of both her and her children. The main thing I didn't know was her maiden name. What if I did some searching for any Caroline (before they were married) born in either France of Germany (she had been from Alsace-Lorraine, an area of France that bordered Germany and switched ownership several times, therefore her birth place is alternately recorded as either France or Germany) around 1842 and living in the specific areas August was probably living in during the years they must have been married? I thought it would make perfect sense if August had met Caroline and married her in Perrysville before moving further into Allegheny so I narrowed my search to post office Perrysville first. And to my great surprise and pleasure, there weren't many Caroline's that fit the bill. One by the name of "Wear" stood out (other records of the same family revealed it to be more likely spelled as Wahr) because some records said she was from France and some and Germany, just like the later records for my Caroline said. And after finding her parents in 1870, it showed she was no longer a part of the household, which meant she either died or had married and moved out. And the man she married could have been August.

It made sense but of course I couldn't confirm it. There was no way I was going to add this to my tree based on purely circumstantial links. I had a clue or a hunch but nothing more.

So when this death record of one of August and Caroline's sons came in with a maiden name that looks like "Wahr", I knew I had confirmed my hunch. While the last letter doesn't look much like an "r", according to censuses, there are no other Caroline's of the right age living in the right area(s) with a similar maiden name. So having already found the census records for Caroline Wahr before she was married, I now can confirm her parents names too and that they were born in Württemberg. I was literally doing a happy dance last night and this morning, I had email attachments of the scanned death records (thanks, Dad!) so I can now add them to my tree.

Additionally, I was thrilled to find out one of the other records that came in is the wrong record for my ancestor. Yes, that's right, I'm happy that it's the incorrect record. Why? Well, remember when I said that another individual (not in my tree) shared the exact name of my second great grandfather, Edward William Bauer, and was born roughly around the same time? Well, it appears there's been some confusion regarding them. I had a Freemason record of him saying he died in 1921 and so I also found him on the PA Death Index. But then I found him on the 1930 census! I knew it was him because he was living with one of his daughters, who was present on earlier census records that link them to my great grandfather too. So I knew it was the correct family which could only mean the 1921 death was for the other Edward William Bauer but I wanted to order the record to be sure. And that is why I was pleased to see Edward's parent's names listed as Charles and Rosina, not August and Caroline.

It does mean I now don't know when Edward died and that the Freemason record is not his. I had thought that it was because I knew his son (my great grandfather) was indeed a Freemason and so I thought it made sense that he might have been too. At the time, I had no idea there was another Edward William Bauer around the same age living in the same area! At least I've got it sorted out now and everything is more clear.

It just goes to show that sometimes you definitely need to go offline to confirm your hunches or find new information.

In light of all this, I haven't had time to do my daily Family History Writing Challenge but it will be back tomorrow.

Don't Make Assumptions

It's very important in genealogy research to not make assumptions. Speculations and hunches can lead you in the right direction but assumptions can lead to tunnel vision.

A great example of this is my paternal grandfather's parents. My great grandmother was born and raised in Lisbon, Ohio. My great grandfather was born and raised in Pittsburgh. Meanwhile, they were married in Hancock County, West Virginia. Neither of them ever lived in or had family ties to Hancock County but it is almost exactly a midway point between Lisbon and Pittsburgh so it makes some sense that they were married here. But had I not already known that this is where they were married, I probably would have gotten tunnel vision in restricting my searches of their marriage record to Ohio or Pennsylvania. 

So keep an open mind - if you can't find what you're looking for in the places you expected it to be, open your search to other possibilities, even if it seems unlikely! 

There are plenty of other examples of how my assumptions did in fact lead me to some brick walls. There was the incorrect assumption that my great grandfather had no sibling which caused me to dismiss several census records. There was the assumption that a census record who reported an individual as male was correct, leading me to fruitless searches of this male in other census records until I finally discovered the individual was actually female. There were endless empty searches of Ellis Island's records for my great grandfather's arrival when it turns out that his port of entry was actually Philadelphia, not New York (or New Jersey, if you're one of those). This is an important note since it seems to be a common assumption among newcomers to genealogy that Ellis Island was the only port of entry into the US which was not true.

Another thing to consider is address changes. Just because your ancestors had a change in address doesn't necessarily mean they moved house. I got very confused when some of my ancestors were reported alternatively as living at four different addresses on two streets which were next to each other. While it's not unlikely for people to move about within the same township, to move only down the road a little ways or just one street away seemed silly to me. But it must be true because there are the addresses listed, right? Wrong! As it turns out, my ancestor owned property that bordered each of the two streets and therefore his name is attributed to both addresses. On top of this, both streets were at some point renumbered, making it look like they had moved to a new address just down the road when they hadn't. 

What assumptions have you made that led you in the wrong directions?