How to Use Hints Without Making a Mess

Now and then I develop family trees on Ancestry so I can collaborate with their owner. For my own tree, I do all the work in Family Tree Maker on my computer. I synchronize my work with my tree on Ancestry each day to benefit anyone who shares some of my roots.

When working on Ancestry, I take advantage of hints for one reason. They save keystrokes. I would never accept a hint without a thorough investigation. However, if I find the evidence I need, and I see a hint that matches what I found, I'll use it. It's a time-saver.

For my own tree, I don't even look at the hints. Most of my tree's facts come from Italian vital records that are sitting on my computer. If I were to find one of these documents in a hint, there's a strong chance it'd be the document image from my own tree. (People borrow them from me all the time. I want them to!)

You can use family tree hints, but they are hints, not verified facts. Do the genealogy research to find the facts and documents.

While looking at my tree overview on Ancestry, I noticed I had a total of 26,154 hints. That's a lot of things to ignore! I decided to take a look at the document hints, also called stories, since there are only 34 of that type.

Find an Interesting Hint

The first hint I opened was an image of a New York City death certificate for a man named Giuseppe from my family tree. I can see it's the same Giuseppe because his date of birth and his parents' names are a match. The only documentation I have for him is his Italian birth record. The great thing about this hint is the new information it provides:

• Giuseppe's occupation was art embroiderer. That's a first in my family tree.
• He died in Queens, New York, on 8 Oct 1918 of broncho pneumonia.
• He married a woman named Alfonsina.
• He spent 15 years in New York City before he died.

If I were the type of person to accept a hint, it would say nothing but Ancestry Family Trees. That's no good at all. The posted document image is a photocopy. I can see the staple holding the pages together. I went to Giuseppe's profile in this family tree and saw they had cited the death index record found on Ancestry. I can do better than that. I can get a clean PDF version from the website of the New York City Municipal Archives. I can cite that website as my source and attach the pristine document image.

And speaking of hints:

• 3 Ways to Tell If That Hint is No Good
• Spinning a Hint into Genealogy Gold
• 3 Ways to Best Use Family Tree Hints
• How to Tell if a Hint is Any Good

Never accept a hint and move on. Use the information to find the actual document and cite that source. No mess, no assumptions, no compounding of someone else's mistakes. I followed the hint to the source instead of accepting it.

Push to Learn More

Now this hint opens up new research opportunities:

• Can I find Giuseppe's arrival in New York in about 1903?
• Can I find him in the census in 1905, 1910, and 1915?
• Who is his wife Alfonsina?
• What other documents are available for him?

To help answer these questions, I looked at Giuseppe's profile page in the hinter's family tree. Four facts had sources attached, linking to Ancestry records. I opened them all.

One. A link to a marriage index helped me use the NYC Municipal Archives site again. I downloaded his marriage certificate. Now I know his wife's full name and date of birth (that's a big bonus), and her parents' full names.

Two. A link to the 1915 New York State Census is promising, but needs verification. If it's the right one, Alfonsina is using the name Frances, and her mother Gaetana is using the name Aida. It's possible.

Three. A link to Giuseppe's World War I draft registration card has the name and address of the company where he worked. It says he did "art needle work". His home address is the same as the one on his death certificate.

Four. A link to a 1906 immigration record appears to be Giuseppe. (He's from the right town, he's the right age, and he lists a brother named Giovanni.) The 1906 date doesn't agree with his death certificate saying he was in New York for 15 years. What more can I find?

Records on Ancestry often show related results in a side column. There I found Giuseppe's 1914 Declaration of Intention to become a citizen. It has his correct date of birth even though it leaves out his hometown. It confirms the 1906 ship manifest! It says he arrived aboard the Cretic on 29 Jul 1906. Now I can add the immigration record to my tree with confidence.

Reap the Harvest

In the end, I added eight document images to Giuseppe in my tree and detailed source citations. I hope my tree will provide hints to my hinter. He has a great portrait of Giuseppe, but not his Italian birth record or his declaration of intention. (Note: If I borrow a photo from someone's tree, I make it private in my tree so it does not get uploaded to Ancestry.)

The New York City death certificate piqued my interest in this hint, but Giuseppe isn't my cousin. What is his relationship to me? He is the nephew of the wife of the first great uncle of my Aunt Stella's husband. So what is he to Aunt Stella's kids, my first cousins? He is the nephew of the wife of their half second great uncle. And that, my friends, is why you do genealogy until the day you die.