When you are working on your family tree, Ancestry.com has a great genealogy service that can boost your efforts in ways that weren’t even imaginable a decade or two ago. There are the hints, or shaky leaves. When you look at your family tree, you may see a shaky leaf appear. This is great news because it makes your research so much easier.
However, hints are not always accurate, so make sure that you verify the information first. Sometimes there’s no real way to know, but oftentimes you’ll see telltale signs that the individual in the hint is not actually for the person in your family tree. While the hint system is incredible, it is only a machine and therefore is not perfect.
Another thing to be aware of is that when you add hints, some genealogy records will also have information for family members. Sometimes the hint system recognizes that the family members are the same as those in your family tree, and sometimes it doesn’t. If it thinks that the individuals are new for your tree, it will say New Person. If the person is already in your tree but the hint system thinks they are a new person, if you add the information to your tree it will create a duplicate individual. Duplicate individuals are a real problem because it means there are two people in your tree with the same name, but the information is slightly different in both. It’s best to avoid getting duplicate people in your tree if you can.
See the video below for more details on hints.
Click on the full screen button to watch the video using your entire computer screen. You can also double-click the video to watch it full screen.