Thursday, May 19, 2016

Hints and records and family trees

When using the hints feature on the family tree, it is not necessary to clear all the hints. Sometimes there are a lot of hints, and you have to balance the time it takes to look at them all with the value they bring to your search and to the data.

When it comes to military records, Sandy had this to say. If there are just a few and you're sure it's the vet's records (you know where he served by his RecId number), you can save them to the tree if you want. But you don't have to.  Sometimes the vet has more than 20 hints and you may not feel like doing all of them . By all means attach hints that you think might help you find your person.  It comes down to personal preference and time. Please do attach any 1890 veterans census that appears to the veteran (and any WWI or WWII draft cards for any of his kids).

ALWAYS attach vital records to the tree for the veteran, his spouse, and their children. Make sure you remember to attach vital records that you found on both Family Search and Ancestry. Vital records include birth, marriage, and death records.

Always attach records that will be input on the Grid to the family tree. Also attach any records that will help generate useful hints.

If you have any tips about using hints or attaching records to the tree, please share them in the comments.

1 comment:

  1. In addition to attaching records, I find that searches are more effective if you estimate birth, marriage, and death dates where you have enough information go make an educated guess. Ancestry then has more parameters on which to search and will somewhat more readily find the pertinent information. Also, adding names of children from Find a Grave, etc. will help you find the family in the census records.

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