Several years ago when Ancestry began providing the hints, I liked them, but I really did not know what to do with them. They actually began to be information overload to the point of a frustration. Recently, however, I figured out how to use these hints as a research guide to get me started on my family tree. Recently, I have used the hints to keep me moving through the research on my tree and it has been a great advantage.
The best place to start with hints is to open an existing or a new tree on your ancestry.com home page. The basic rule of thumb of starting with yourself applies here. If you are starting a new tree, the best place to start is always with yourself. Once you have yourself in the tree, add you children and parents with as much information as you know. As you continue to build your tree, you will begin to have hints as Ancestry crawls the database for the information. If you have time to sit and review every hint that pops up, go right ahead. Realistically, you will have an increasing amount with every person you add as more connections are made and the amount will become overwhelming.
After several weeks of allowing the hints to pile up, or if this is an existing tree that is already overwhelming sit down and begin to review the hints. Again go to the tree that you are using and begin with yourself. Gradually, go through each generation of hints. Review every file that the database sends your way. You will ignore some, “maybe” some, and add some.
As you add, be very careful for how you accept the information. If the information is known to be false, I recommend saving it, but making it an alternate choice. Being an alternate will still bring in more information if the information happens to match the mistakes. I do not add other people’s tree to mine. I like to look at them for reference, but I only trust the data that I see, so I ignore those records. I haven’t always done that, so recently, I have been removing some of these tree from my records.
As I go through each generation, I am able to review and make notes on every piece of data that I come across. As I accept more and more, soon the timeline in the person’s life begins to take shape. Make sure you make note of holes in the timeline and ask plenty of questions as you go along. The biggest question to keep in mind is: “Is this true?”
Soon, you will begin to see progress on your tree as row by row becomes clear of leaves. Once you have worked through the initial push for leaves, you will be able to harness the power of Ancestry and be notified of possible matches as ancestry makes more and more records available.
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Logo and tree from Ancestry.com