My Genius Has Been Recognised!

Top genealogy site awards
Yay! GeneaGeek is one of MyHeritage’s top 100 genealogy sites of 2010!
Click on the award above to see the list.
I’m off to find new genealogy blogs to follow – maybe you should too.

Member DISconnect

When I log on to ancestry.co.uk nowadays, it shows me ‘Recent Member Connect Activity’. Amongst other things, this means I’m notified when people attach records to their trees that I have also attached to mine. I think that’s actually quite a cool feature. I can now connect with people who are more likely to be family members .

The idea seems to be to make connections with possible family members, however I think it may have another useful purpose – identifying those who are NOT connected to your tree.
For example, I can see that one particular user has added two of my ALLEN census records to their own tree. One record is for William H Allen but this user has added it to a William G Allen in their tree. The same user has added an 1861 certificate to another person who I do not recognise as a member of this branch.
It is possible that this user has added these records to their tree in error – probably misreading the handwriting (Who hasn’t done that?). With this feature, we can make contact quickly and establish whether a mistake has been made so the user does not have to waste any further time, money and energy.
I must confess that I’ve let my ancestry membership lapse so I can’t actually check these tree ‘connections’. They may very well be true connections or it is possible that I am the one who is incorrect. Nevertheless, I think it is extremely helpful to find out sooner rather than later that you are barking up ‘the wrong tree’.