I have never been a fan of Ancestry’s search engines, past or present.  I have tried back ways, side doors to find pertinent records.  Only to be frustrated pages of of irrelevant people that may be similar to what you entered in the search engine.   No matter how much information entered, dates, cities, family info, etc.; the records clearly do not match the person.

If I am searching for some one in Kentucky between 1850 to 1900, why does Ancestry return records from outside my date range and from far off locales of Europe, Canada, or Alaska.  I then slug through pages of irrelevant records and find a possible tidbit 20 pages over.   I find myself longing for the old engine where you could click on state.  Search categories just for that state with limited ancestor info and gleaned more applicable information.  It was quicker to scan the data to find leads. Click on categories now and it is a mess of tumble weeds, especially using a smart device for searching.  Screen resolution makes it hard to select specific records.

I was looking for a new way to limit search returns, when I remembered I hadn’t used the Search Family Trees feature in a long time.  Back in the day, there wasn’t a lot of people searching my uncommon name and I never found anything.  Well fast forward a few years and a gnawing interest to find out who we are, more people are throwing a family tree online.  Just my luck, there are now a few out there for Budny and Bourcki.

I seen my share of trees created by the “free two-weekers” who slap haphazardly gather, merge, and duplicate, erroneous data to create their family tree.  Then have the audacity to populate the tree to the world.  Really, you didn’t notice that record you attached to your great grandfather lists his birth year, nine years before your grandfather was born.

I especially like the ones where there are several children listed who were born to the parents after one or both parents have died.  It must be the fuzzy math that makes it difficult for those “free two-weekers”.

But I have been digressing from my post title.  I was very excited to find a family tree with names I was searching, hoping beyond hope that this was the missing link. I saw a collateral line with promising leads.  I opened the tree in anticipation of a Christmas present, and ….. something is not right.  I noticed the names of my ancestors are listed the same way my cousin used in her tree.  Which tells me this person copied my cousins tree.

My cousin listed every name, nickname, spelling variation of a person in the name field.  Cousin would list an person’s name as;  Smith (Smithe/Smyth/Schmidt),  John, (Johnny/Jon/ Jack/Johnnie).  Instead of using the alternate name field.  Very annoying, but it helps me spot her tree and ignore it when I am searching.

In addition, I recognize the family name that was misspelled on the 1910 census. To my horror, I realize that he person who created this tree, copied my cousin’s tree and added (instead of merging) the 1910 records to create a tree with duplicate persons.  Tribbles of exponentially larger and larger matriculated error filled family trees are taking over the hold, Jim.  I am appalled at the lack of common sense.  The tree owner lists a woman named Catharina, born in 1825 in Poland.  Attaches a 1920 Illinois marriage record, cites a 1930 census showing a Pennsylvania residence, listing Catharina, age 39.  Then states Catharina died in 1983 at the age of 158.

Fuzzy math….A nationwide epidemic.

Most of us have those moments at work where we get distracted or in my case bored, with whatever task we are working on.  Then there are those individuals who have a case of squirrel-itis or ADD, also like me.  When that moment happens, I reach for my smartphone and spin the wheel on my Ancestry.com app.

Using the People menu under my Family Tree list, I rapidly scroll up the screen several times and watch the list of names go spinning by.   When the list tops scrolling, I may choose click on a name with hints from Ancestry.com or keep rapidly scrolling up to find or more interesting name.  I have nearly 3000 people in my list, so the spinner is bound to stop on an ancestor name I can’t recall.  This just adds to the excitement.  Some of us get the joy where ever we can during the work day.

One day I landed on name  from a far off collateral line and hit the jackpot.  I added 11 people with sources in a quick few minutes to my family tree.  Occasionally, I like to spin through the hints just in case I can discover a new record in Ancestry.com collection.

Yes, I know I could search using “People with Hints” from the drop down menu. Where is the fun in that.!  Genealogy is about the anticipation of feeling lucky and the reward of a prize.

I might as well put my distraction to good use in finding clues even if I am at work.  Look at it this way,  I am improving my analytical skills that can be applied to my work.