Revisit

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White Goose Flying - Royalty free from pickpic.com

Whew! January has flown by.  

This month I've been re-visiting old research, led by Ancestry® Pro Tools power to find possible duplicate profiles in my huge tree. Along the way, I sometimes do a bit of research or even prune as I go. I hope in 2026 to really make my DNA tree shine.

One of my Baysinger branches caught me this week, and I've been taking it all the way down to the 1950 Census, which of course was not available when I began building an online tree 20 years ago. 

As a beginner, I allowed far too many duplicate profiles to proliferate. I didn't know how to prevent that happening, or to fix it.* Also I had no clue that downloading a gedcom from MyHeritage and then uploading to Ancestry would give me many worthless "sources" which must be removed to generate Ancestry hints. I use the hints to build a "skeleton" for a profile, finding the person and their family in census and BMD (birth, marriage, death) records. I've always done this for each spouse and all their children, which is why my tree is so big. 

It's been eye-opening to see the best and worst of beginner research. I now see the weak research that resulted from no research planning; no clear research questions, or clear goal. When I got tired of a family that bored me, I used to  hop somewhere else. I'm so grateful that I found the South King County GS where I learned how to plan, what to ask, and how to analyze the records.  

Now I'm finishing up at least one entirely-overlooked branch of my grandmother's Baysinger family. Now I know to follow each child and their children down to the present, then move back, take the next child, and the next.... It is so satisfying to see it all come together and there is a certain joy in completing the basic work. The Baysingers were the family I began with in the beginning, and half of my DNA matches trace to them.


Next I'll have the pleasure of looking at Thrulines to see if there is DNA evidence for a biological link to these distant cousins. The screenshot above tells me that there is a chance to do so. Finding those DNA matches is like opening  surprise Christmas presents! 

 There are lots of ways to look back at old research, and each time I do, the tree is stronger. Please tell us some of your own research stories!

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 * Merging profiles is impossible in MyHeritage trees, which is why I don't use their tree much anymore. 

 

 

Valorie Zimmerman

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Send your stories to m.strickland@skcgs.org


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