Cons and Pros

Update: I have put some of my data in a public member tree on Ancestry.

Why do I do genealogy this way?

I've corresponded and collaborated with hundreds of genealogists, from beginners to experts, and it seems that everyone has their own way of going about this endeavor. Many post public trees on proprietary sites like Ancestry, or free sites like WikiTree. Others have their own websites, with various kinds of structure. There are lots of pros and cons to consider. Several people have asked if they can "see my tree," and others ask why I don't publish a tree. So I'll try to explain.

My Site

As you can see, my website consists of several dozen pages, with most of them describing the descendants of a particular ancestor or couple. I have gone with a patriarchal system because the surnames and records are that way.

For an introduction to the site, go to the Home page. You will find a chart for each of my grandparents, showing 3 or 4 generations of their ancestry. Also, many of the pages have charts illustrating further generations. I need to do more work on the interconnections, and I welcome any suggestions as to where I might insert a useful chart or link.

Since I was adopted as an infant, I have two ancestries - that of my adoptive parents, and my biological ancestry. The former can be found here. This site is for my biological ancestry. When I started this research, all I had was a few close matches, and some possible ancestors, on AncestryDNA. Working forward in time, I was eventually able to identify my biological grandparents. My parents are among their children, and I'm pretty sure, but not certain, about who they were. My mother was only 15, and living in a foster home, when she was impregnated by a 21-year-old. She later married and had other children, and I'm sure this would be a sensitive topic for them, so I have not identified her.

Considerations

1. This site is free, both to me and to viewers. You don't have to buy a licence to see the data, as you do with Ancestry. And I don't have to pay any rent. Google Sites lets me have up to 10 websites, with up to 100 Mb on each. When I started to approach the limit on this site, an extra 100 Mb appeared!

2. I like to provide my data free of charge, to other researchers, and I don't want Ancestry charging people to see data that I have provided for free. Of course I appreciate acknowledgement of any original content that I have contributed, but I don't feel that I "own" historical information. I have tried to provide citations and credit for information, especially photos, so that future researchers will have a trail to follow. They shouldn't have to take my word about who appears in a photo, or about the names of a couple's children.

3. Some of the public sites allow others to edit your tree. What could go wrong?

4. The site is based on the ancestries of my 4 biological grandparents. I suppose I could publish 4 trees, but my research didn't "grow" that way. I think the first page was the one for Salathiel ADAMS.

5. It seems natural to me that a genealogical study should always be a work-in-progress. There are thousands of details, so fact-checking never ends, and new information keeps coming in. Websites and public trees have this advantage over hard copy. On the other hand, I tend to place high confidence in the genealogical books that were popular in the US around 1860 to 1920. The authors tended to take great care to get the details right, and publishers checked the qualifications and reputations of their authors. The internet is notorious as a repository of large amounts of low-quality information, which is shared with little regard for accuracy. (Hopefully, the present work is less guilty of that than most!) Hard copy, especially that produced before the internet, tends to be more reliable.

6. Ancestry has a monopoly on genealogy. I give them plenty of money, and yet everywhere I turn, they want more. When I managed a few county sites for USGenWeb, I was very fond of their motto, "Keeping Free Genealogy on the Internet!"

7. One aspect of genealogy that is obscured by popular approaches to genealogy is the uncertainty. When a TV genealogist finds your 4g-grandfather's birth date, they don't express any doubt. In reality, we never can really be sure about any genealogical fact. There are even soap-opera examples of parents who don't know who their children are, and vice versa. There are many mistakes in all kinds of records, from census to vital, and even family information. Sometimes several records have the same mistake, because they are all based on one previous record. People have falsified records, literacy was not always the best, some didn't even know their own birth dates, and don't get me started on cursive. Any genealogical fact is known with some level of certainty, between 0 and 1. These values can change, when new information becomes available. Maybe I should use another word, besides "fact"?

8. When I started doing genealogy in 2011, Ancestry had their Family Tree Maker software synced with their database. It was easy to download large amounts of data from public member trees. This was very convenient, and I quickly amassed my own database, with thousands of individuals. I gradually realized the disadvantage of this approach: I was downloading some good information, but also a lot of mistakes. Children born before their parents. Events taking place at a time when the place was not inhabited. After seeing the same obvious mistakes on a dozen different public member trees, I began to appreciate the need for careful checking.

9. One reason I don't publish a tree is that I don't want people downloading large amounts of my data indiscriminately. It's not so much a matter of protecting my data, although, like anyone else, I like to have my own contributions acknowledged. But I am firmly convinced that checking sources for every fact is the right way to do genealogy, and I don't want to enable the other approach.

10. Many genealogists have contacted me, using the email address that I have at the bottom of each page. It is also possible to make comments, but you have to login to Google, which is free. Nobody has done that - I don't think I have received any comments! But I do appreciate all the feedback and conversations that I've had in email.

11. I'm not offended when someone asks for sources. Where did I get a fact, and why do I think it's true? This helps me to improve my work. It seems that some people are offended when they feel that their information is challenged. I don't mean any offense; I just want to get it right.

12. I have tried to tell a personal story, for each of my ancestors. I'm interested in knowing what life was like, for them and their families. So I consider each story to be embedded in the culture and conditions in which they lived. That kind of story doesn't come through in a family tree.

13. Privacy is a concern, and I have tried to limit the information concerning any individuals still living. Information that has appeared in newspapers and public records is considered on a case-by-case basis. If there is anything you would like me to remove, for privacy, please let me know.

Last updated 13 Sep 2020 by William Haloupek. Contact haloupek at gmail dot com.