ANCESTRY: Fun, but not accurate

Sholeh Patrick is quite correct in that tracing one’s ancestry can be fun, entertaining and informative. However, I must take issue with her statement regarding Ancestry.com. She stated “Ancestry.com is the gold standard--easy to use and chock full of reliable and thoroughly researched information. . .”

My wife caught the “bug” a few years ago and has done extensive research on the ancestry on both sides of our family — to the extent that she now has over 17,000 names associated with our family tree.

This brings me to my point. When doing research on an ancestor via ancestry.com and finding that he/she was married before he/she was born, or had children long after he/she died, or lived over 125 years, calls into question the reliability and the research associated with that person. If this were a rarely occurring issue I could understand, but it is a very frequent occurrence.

My belief is that ancestry.com accepts whatever information anyone wishes to upload to it. I do not believe it is checked for accuracy (particularly dates) or verified in any way. I realize researching and verifying every piece of information sent them would be impossible. But they (and so you,too) should provide a caveat to let people know that much of the information found via that website has not been verified for accuracy.

But, as Sholeh says, finding our connections to the past is an extremely interesting endeavor.

With continued interest in her column,

CHARLES ROSE

Coeur d’Alene