Hi from London

[Caisley]

Hey all, I'm obv new here, I am 30 I currently live in North London.
I am here to learn how to successfully research my family history,
I am on Ancestry and that has opened up a can of worms, with the hint tips, and I have a huge mistake on my family tree on my mums side and my dad side I don't even know

I hope to get to know you all and I hope we can all be of use to each other

Regards
Caisley

[almach]

Hi Caisley,

Welcome to British Genealogy Forums and thank you for introducing yourself

It sounds like you could do with some help in sorting out your tree, post your queries on the relevant forums, just remember not to post the names of any living people. Members here are very knowledgeable and always willing to help. Hopefully, collectively we can put you back on track.

[Caisley]

Many thanks for the warm welcome,
the issue I have will need experienced eyes and I will tackle it when I have a better understanding of what I am doing.

This forum has already helped me understand and locate my nan and granddads marriage certificate so I can learn my grand parents names, so I am now on the right path to learning how to do thing properly

[Annalies]

Hi Caisley, I hope you have much success in tracing your family history. The fact that you have ordered certificates to get accurate names to trace is great. Be VERY careful of all the trees on Ancestry as 99% are unsourced or copied from others, use them as clues only, not as confirmed information. As for the records on Ancestry, they are numerous and many and will help you. But there are so many other fantastic websites that need to be added to your list so keep looking around because Ancestry is a drop in the ocean compared to what is out there. IN saying that...you live in the BEST city for family history research if your ancestors are British. I highly recommend a trip to the National Archives in Kew to search and look at records that are not online, but which will go a long way to helping you prove your family links. Proof is key in Genealogy!

[Caisley]

Hi Annalies, many thanks for the warm welcome,
I have an added bonus for my pedigree on my dad side that the surname is English dating back to the 1300s and it is seemingly quite rare, my mum side I can make contact with, I know my an aunt has some family trees on ancestry as well, but she lives a good 2 hrs away from me so its not so easy to pop over for a cuppa and family chat but I can call on her if needed and I could help her out too, if only we were to talk more.

now I am here I can start learning from skilled researchers and only go from strength to strength

[chaz31]

hi and welcome.
the problem I get with Ancestry is that I type in a name with initials and get hundreds of hits, I type surname and Christian I either get a lot that include second and third names or I get none and it tells me to change my search.
specifically with WW1 if I put in name, surname and serial number I still get lots of hits with no relevance or none at all.
the problem being is it should be a search including all input not with any of the input.
there are also translation errors, these records have been put in by human hands, sometimes the names cant be read or deciphered and are a guestimate, then there is the typist error.

[Caisley]

Hi Chaz31, many thanks for the warm welcome,
I have started with Ancestry, at first I thought it was amazing as it would give hints and tips and I seem to be able to build a tree formation quite quickly and with a little input from my mother every thing seemed to match, then something has gone horribly wrong and I am sure I have a miss match, meaning I had a whole new branch appear from one person having 2 partners and an unrealistic amount of children, and as a complete newbie it is beyond me to fix quickly, I would love to find a local genealogy club and get some face to face tuition.
I know Ancestry is a useful tool but it is to be used with caution for the reasons you have said and a few I have discovered myself, it does over do it on the hints, things match too easily an then you are off on a tangent going the wrong direction

[Lesley Robertson]

Caisley, while Ancestry can be very useful, it's also full of pitfalls. Unless it's backed up with documents, I tread everything found there are a clue not a fact, especially with the user trees. Too many people assume that if the names match, it must be the same person, but imagine a 19th century village where 2 brothers are having kids at roughly the same time. There was a lot of pressure to call the kids after the parents and grandparents, so it's easily possible that (even with a very rare name) there's more than one person of the right age and same name. For example, 2 of my nephews had sons 6 months apart. Even if their father had been called something rare such as Kermit MacMuppet - there would be 2 similar individuals, maybe in neighbouring villages but similar enough to be assumed to be one person...

I suggest that you put your current work to one side for a day or two, get a large bit of paper (amazing how a hard copy makes things clearer) and only put on it the people you're sure about because you've seen (copies of) certificates, etc. Then you will know exactly where you are, and can check the previous generation - it won't take long to identify where it's gone wrong. There's plenty of people here who will be able to help. We've all made mistakes at one time or another..

[Caisley]

Hi Lesley, Many thanks for the warm welcome,
one idea I have had is to make a vacant wall into a family tree so I have a huge space to work with and an offline visual,
the best way to do this would be black board paint and chalk, so any mistakes can easily be corrected and it can be changed depending on what tree you are currently following.

many thanks for the tips, I have learnt the hard way that Ancestry is dangerous when used wrong or with little knowledge of what I am doing, I am now reading books and studying how best to organise my self and to confirm relatives and how they fit in my tree, and I have come here to find a community that will also help me learn how to go about things in a better manner

[Sandyhall]

A couple of Free to view sites are FreeBMD this gives you the details of Births, Marriages and Deaths records so you can find Certificates and Family Search (The church of the Latter day Saints) if you haven't found them yet