Public trees on Ancestry

[anniebea]

Apologies if this isn't in the right forum.

I use Find My Past for my research and find it good and I have built quite a large tree of my great granddads brothers and sisters families.

However I have found on Ancestry (from my limited access on a free weekend with no subscription) a couple of public trees which appear to include part of the tree that I am having trouble with.

I'm thinking of joining Ancestry to view this public tree. My question is What information can you see on public trees?. I assume that you can contact the owner of the tree . Can you extract any data from public trees?.

Would appreciate any pointers as it may help me build one leg of my tree if the right information is accessible.

Thanks in advance

Anne

[Megan Roberts]

Yes you can extract information from public trees on Ancestry.

However, a word of caution.

Always be sceptical about where the information has originated from - does it have a proper source record? Does it have a document trail? Or does it simply have no attributable sources?

I have a family tree on Ancestry which is public, and I know people choose not to make theirs public for a variety of different reasons.

However, when looking at other people's trees I am always very sceptical unless they are properly sourced and documented.

[anniebea]

Thanks for your reply and the words of caution. One other question, can you access other public trees if you just have the basic membership?

Anne

[Megan Roberts]

I don't see why not.

Most UK libraries have access to Ancestry, so why not pay yours a visit to see if they have what you want before you splash out?

[Chris Doran]

Yes, you can access a public tree with a basic sub and see any textual info the owner has added, but you can't see any records which need a higher sub – if you try, you just get a "pay here" page. The same thing happens if you save a record to your shoebox on a free day and look back afterwards, so always save to your computer instead.

[SueNSW]

Most UK libraries have access to Ancestry, so why not pay yours a visit to see if they have what you want before you splash out?

Just be aware though that unless it has changed very recently you can't view trees or send messages through the library version

Cheers (and HNY)
Sue

[jen1302]

i have some of my trees public and some private due to time and effort put in to obtaining documents which i happily share with other person in a message/

One tree is private and none searchable out of respect for a distant cousin we found on ancestry due to the death certs we have on our 2nd great grandfather.

you can get free access to premium sites at https://www.familysearch.org/locations/ in uk

And https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en...istory_Library in US

[mikejee]

I would always save anything important onto your computer. Never rely on a site, however well known it is. If changes are later made to the information (or it disappears) you can always compare the new to the old - new is not necessarily always ( more) right