Family history with the help of a little green leaf and some of the other tools available on ancestry.com I started to put the family together. This is the dilemma, do you jump on each suggestion blind because you want to add names to the family or do you want the history in your family tree to be accurate? This is where I’m going to pause and start the Lessons Learned section. Because it is with this drive to add family members, that we get a little carried away.
Lesson Learned #1; Lie! I know, mama told you not to lie, and daddy told you that if you lied he would take his belt off. In fact my Mom would say, “you’ll never be to tall to stand up to my chair and broom young man.” Let me explain. If you run into a brick wall and can’t find anything out about where that family member came from or their parents, take a guess. Put the guess in and see what happens. Is there leaf now? If you get suggestions, follow that and see what happens. Let me explain. If your great grand father was Felix Sigler and you can’t find any other family members, guess that his father’s name is Phelix Sigler, or Filex Sigler, F Sigler. Run your search and see if anything pops up. If it does, then see if you can find census records or something else that confirms your guess. Since we are talking of census records, take a look at anyone else with the same last name. If they were born within 10 or 20 years of each other, assume they were siblings. Lie and put them into your family tree and see if you can make a match now. Confirm the lies. If it doesn’t work out, make sure to remove those lies, so it doesn’t confuse the next researcher.
We have to be careful when we follow the green leaf. One small error can put you in the Queen of England’s family. Can you imagine the back taxes you might owe? Verify your work. So much information is being added every day. If you run into a brick wall, don’t give up. Make a list of those family members that you would like to do more work on. When you need something to do, start at the top of your list and see if anything has changed. Any green leaves now?
To be continued . . .
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