I'm getting more and more hesitant about putting trees online because of fear of having relationships wrong in my reconstructed trees. Because I can't afford to be buying certificates, it makes it a bit difficult to confirm some relationships, although I usually work around trying to find multiple pieces of evidence before I link two people. I see my family tree database (legacy) as a "working" document - open to changes and testing hypotheses. My rationale for linking people is almost always documented in the notes field, but without going through every individual in a tree and checking notes, I have no way of knowing how much guess work there is in a tree - so I don't publish it, but just keep on working on finding and adding in new information that will help confirm links. The huge number of spelling and transcription differences in the surname, and large proportion of catholic families with a limited range of given names complicates it even more. I also have an enormous number of different and separate trees,as few of the ones with Irish emigrants as the earliest ancestor can be linked yet, and there are other apparently separate origins of the name. I did start putting a few small families onto wikitree as I thought that would allow collaboration as well as enforcing the requirement for referencing, but recently I haven't been impressed with what other people have been putting on wikitree - many of the same old unverified trees from dodgy GEDCOMS complete with errors. My nervousness about publishing is getting to the ridiculous point now, and I know I need to start putting trees online, but I'm not quite sure how to decide when a tree is good enough (i.e a high probability of relationships all being correct). Any suggestions? Corinne Curtis (Sennett/Sinnott, etc ONS, and 35,000 names in legacy database)

Hello Corinne. I understand your hesitation but would encourage you to go ahead. (Wish I had seen Daniel's contribution before I wrote all of the below. His few words sum up our approach perfectly!) Here's the rationale that we use at HowesFamilies.com. It works for us, though probably would not for many others. We came to it out of a desire to compile a large study and to do that we had to obtain the help of others. So we reconstruct families as our primary approach, put online what we have and ask others to comment. We use a "balance of probability" approach, albeit using the maximum amount of data we can find on each individual and quoting our sources as often as we can. Sometimes we aren't totally sure and in those cases we use a mixture of - joining individuals, but noting that we aren't completely sure and here's the rationale. - not joining two individuals but making notes on each saying that we think it's possible that they are the same person - omitting the person entirely because we can't yet figure out where they belong - buying a certificate, when we can afford it! - asking for the help of other researchers in our monthly emails in a small section called "Puzzle Corner" We encourage everyone to check our work. If we make a mistake (and we do, sometimes!) we correct it and leave a note saying something like "we previously thought this person was married to x . . ." or something like that so that people can see what we did and why. If someone helps us to correct a mistake, we publicly thank them on the individual's record. I don't measure it but would guess that well over 95% of comments we get are helpful and collaborative. A few start out negative (eg, why is my ancestor on your site when we aren't related? or even "you're wrong") and mostly turn around once they figure out what we are trying to do. One of the side benefits of this approach for us is that we have become the experts on our name and are seen to be so by others researching it; our site is quoted by others as the source for their research. It would have been impossible for us to attain that if we had waited until we were sure. Now we regularly hear from folks whom we've not interacted with for two or three years saying things like, "I found this extra bit of information . . .". Good luck whatever you decide to do. Paul On Thu, Jan 1, 2015 at 12:16 PM, Corinne Curtis via <goons@rootsweb.com> wrote: > I'm getting more and more hesitant about putting trees online because > of fear of having relationships wrong in my reconstructed trees. > Because I can't afford to be buying certificates, it makes it a bit > difficult to confirm some relationships, although I usually work > around trying to find multiple pieces of evidence before I link two > people. I see my family tree database (legacy) as a "working" > document - open to changes and testing hypotheses. My rationale for > linking people is almost always documented in the notes field, but > without going through every individual in a tree and checking notes, I > have no way of knowing how much guess work there is in a tree - so I > don't publish it, but just keep on working on finding and adding in > new information that will help confirm links. The huge number of > spelling and transcription differences in the surname, and large > proportion of catholic families with a limited range of given names > complicates it even more. I also have an enormous number of different > and separate trees,as few of the ones with Irish emigrants as the > earliest ancestor can be linked yet, and there are other apparently > separate origins of the name. > > I did start putting a few small families onto wikitree as I thought > that would allow collaboration as well as enforcing the requirement > for referencing, but recently I haven't been impressed with what other > people have been putting on wikitree - many of the same old unverified > trees from dodgy GEDCOMS complete with errors. > > My nervousness about publishing is getting to the ridiculous point > now, and I know I need to start putting trees online, but I'm not > quite sure how to decide when a tree is good enough (i.e a high > probability of relationships all being correct). Any suggestions? > > Corinne Curtis (Sennett/Sinnott, etc ONS, and 35,000 names in legacy database) > _____________________________________________ > > RootsWeb lists - surnames, regions, software, etc http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to GOONS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message -- Paul Howes www.howesfamilies.com Researching House, Howes, Hows, Howse & Howze worldwide

It depends on why you want to publish the tree. If you claim it is the definitive family history you need to be very certain of your facts. At the other end of the spectrum if it is published as a work in progress with appropriate caveats then it is a useful research tool for you and others. Personally I think there is more to gain from 'early ' publication rather than striving for accuracy. I can see no harm from publishing a speculative tree provided it is described as such. Colin Stevenson (Cavie & Monnington)

Hi Corinne, I'm certainly with those who are saying publish, but make people aware of the uncertainties, etc. There are options, though, as to how you publish i.e. whether you publish everything or just some of what you have, and whether you make it all public or require people to sign-in to see. For instance, if you use TNG you have the option of a website where everyone can see some pages but only those you give a password to can see the details. This means you can make sure they understand it is a work in progress, by your response to their request for access. The downside is that probably less people will see it and you will certainly get less help. (For my own family tree I have had people send all sorts e.g. information about a train accident a relation was in, from someone interested in the railway, recently a clarification as to who someone had married when I just had the names of the 2 brides on the page - this person was related to the other couple; I'm sure these people would never have asked for access to my tree; they came across specific names and so contacted me). If you go for making everything open, remember many (most) people will not enter the site via the home page, and may not visit it. and so caveats there may be unseen. You can, though, get around this by adding them to the header or footer of every page (or a link to them). Since you are using Legacy I guess you will be exporting a GEDCOM from it and importing to TNG or something else allowing an online tree. You could tag those you want to export and leave off any particularly speculative. (I think you could tag all and untag those to be left out if easier). Although TNG has lots of options, including the facility to have more than one 'tree' (a tree on TNG can be a file of a number of unlinked trees) one thing I regret it doesn't allow is a mixture of open and password-protected trees within the same installation. Although it would be possible to have more than one installation of TNG within a website the advantage of more than one tree in a single installation is that you can search the trees singly or together. Whatever software you go for to publish your tree check what it will do with notes. On my own tree I added some comments in bold and/or red etc. to draw attention to uncertainties. But these were in the 'general notes' or 'research notes' in Legacy. Although I have my own website I also have my tree (though not my ONS) on Ancestry. I've discovered that when I put my tree on Ancestry although it gave people access to notes re events, the general notes, with these important warnings, were hidden from the public! Hope that helps, if any of it sounds of interest but needs more explaining do ask, Teresa On 01/01/2015 17:16, Corinne Curtis via wrote: > I'm getting more and more hesitant about putting trees online because > of fear of having relationships wrong in my reconstructed trees. > Because I can't afford to be buying certificates, it makes it a bit > difficult to confirm some relationships, although I usually work > around trying to find multiple pieces of evidence before I link two > people. I see my family tree database (legacy) as a "working" > document - open to changes and testing hypotheses. My rationale for > linking people is almost always documented in the notes field, but > without going through every individual in a tree and checking notes, I > have no way of knowing how much guess work there is in a tree - so I > don't publish it, but just keep on working on finding and adding in > new information that will help confirm links. The huge number of > spelling and transcription differences in the surname, and large > proportion of catholic families with a limited range of given names > complicates it even more. I also have an enormous number of different > and separate trees,as few of the ones with Irish emigrants as the > earliest ancestor can be linked yet, and there are other apparently > separate origins of the name. > > I did start putting a few small families onto wikitree as I thought > that would allow collaboration as well as enforcing the requirement > for referencing, but recently I haven't been impressed with what other > people have been putting on wikitree - many of the same old unverified > trees from dodgy GEDCOMS complete with errors. > > My nervousness about publishing is getting to the ridiculous point > now, and I know I need to start putting trees online, but I'm not > quite sure how to decide when a tree is good enough (i.e a high > probability of relationships all being correct). Any suggestions? > > Corinne Curtis (Sennett/Sinnott, etc ONS, and 35,000 names in legacy database) > _____________________________________________ > > RootsWeb lists - surnames, regions, software, etc http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to GOONS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > -- ------------------------ Teresa Goatham Sign the petition to open historic BMD registers - http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/62779 (UK residents / British citizens only)