Family Trees on the Internet

Do they belong in your family tree?

This NPR story, broadcast in February 2014, highlights a significant problem with using the internet to do genealogy: family trees that are all wrong. Granted badly researched trees and falsified family trees have always existed. The convenience of the web now makes it much easier to find them and connect to them on FamilySearch.org, Ancestry.com and similar sites.

So beware of family trees you find online and use them as clues to guide your research. Always ask yourself if the appearance of a particular person in an online tree makes sense geographically, chronologically, and historically.


With thanks to Genealogists.com who posted a link to this story on their Facebook page.