Five Steps To Fix Your Family Tree

Most genealogists start with a mild interest in their family’s history, which quickly leads to a full-blown passion. Unfortunately, in our inexperienced enthusiasm, we don’t know what we don’t know. It’s a classic Dunning-Kruger scenario, and at some point near the “Valley of Despair,” you realize that you need to fix your family tree.

Early on, while we’re on the peak of “Mount Stupid,” we make assumptions and mistakes. We copy or import family trees, assuming the tree owner must have information that we didn’t. We accept records and hints without careful study, only to come to the shocking realization that more than one John Smith lived in a county at a particular time. And most commonly, we fail to document our sources.

Then, as we begin to learn about best practices and methodologies, our competence increases. We know we need a solid foundation before we can continue. My cousin and I had a joke, “she who has the most names wins.” At one point, I had over 11,000 people on my primary family tree. Many of the people were well-researched and well-documented. But the rest . . . well, I didn’t really know where they came from. I knew I had to take action. So, without further ado, here are my top five steps to fix your family tree.

1. Consider a “do-over.”

Depending on how far along you are in your research, you may decide to scrap everything and start fresh. When I decided to fix my tree in 2019, I purchased Thomas MacEntee’s book, The Genealogy Do-Over. You can now access the free 2021 digital version of the workbook here.

Not only does this workbook provide step-by-step instructions, but it also provides methodologies, resources, and tech tips that will improve every aspect of your genealogy research. And you caught that this is free, right!

Because the parts of my tree that were well researched and documented were interspersed with those that weren’t, the thought of starting over was not appealing. The workbook also provides a “go-over” option. With over 11,000 names though, I had to get my tree to a more manageable size before I could really give it a good go-over. So I analyzed my tree.

2. Analyze on your tree.

When I began researching in earnest in 2004, I used Legacy’s genealogy software. When Ancestry.com launched, I joined, uploaded my Gedcom file, and went completely digital. But I missed the report features I had with genealogy software. Especially once I realized that I needed to reduce the size of my tree.

I opted to go with RootsMagic genealogy software. If you are already using another brand of genealogy software that offers potential problems reports, continue using what you are using. But if you have an online-only tree, both Legacy and RootsMagic offer a free version. You can import your online tree and check for potential duplicates, births that occurred after a mother’s death, unlinked people, etc. Run your reports, but don’t start making any changes until you complete step three.

3. Establish criteria for who you want on your tree.

People have different views on who should and should not be included on a family tree. Some people think biological relationships only are appropriate. And with the popularity of affordable at-home DNA testing, some think that a tree should only include people confirmed through DNA. Others believe that a family tree should include the in-laws (and the out-laws) and the steps and the fostered and adopted.

It is your family tree. There is no right or wrong. But it is helpful to establish some criteria of who goes on your family tree, or in my case, who would be removed from my family tree.

Personally, I am in the last camp. I have several lines that intermarried for generations, and who migrated together. So, it is important to my research to include all the siblings, and often the spouse’s siblings, and their children and the children’s children. This is how I have solved brick walls by correlating evidence using Friends, Associates and Neighbors. It is also how you end up with 11,000 people in your tree.

So, I decided to:

1. Remove anyone born before 1500. Goodbye Charlemgagne. Goodbye Robert the Bruce. One of my lines claimed descent from a particular British noble, so I spent countless hours adding names to my family tree from Burke’s Peerage. But I didn’t have any evidence to link my known ancestor in America to the noble. But I did research and document my Mayflower passenger lines, so I had people documented on my tree who were born in the 1500s. So, as a way to not inadvertanly remove them, I settled on the year 1500.
2. Remove anyone with a relationship of a third cousin or greater who a). I don’t personally know or know of or b.) I didn’t research and document myself. We have a large family, and a few of our lines have periodically held family reunions. So I am fortunate that I know many people in my extended family, and if I don’t personally know them, I know of them. However, because I imported family trees from RootsWeb in the early 2000s, I had 5th cousins 5 times removed on my tree. Many of them are living, so all I had is a surname and gender. I really had no idea who they are, so I determined that they don’t belong on my tree.
3. Remove (almost) anyone born in a foreign country. Most of my lines have lived in North America for over 300 years. I have a very few lines that I researched across the pond. But, they are so few, it is very simple for me to pick them out. So, I know when I see several generations in Germany or Switzerland, those are people I added from other trees without doing a lot of research.

These criteria may not work for you, but you get the idea. Your criteria should make it simple to run a report and draw a clear line. Your criteria can also help you determine when to add people moving forward. They may help you realize that adding names may not be actually helping you solve your research question.

4. Prune

“Through the pruning process, dead and/or diseased branches can be removed safely, allowing the tree to develop stronger and healthier ones.”¹ Using the above criteria, I ran additional birth location, birth date, and relationship reports. I used these and the reports I ran in step two to identify my dead and/or diseased branches. I then began to safely prune my family tree. For me, safely meant manually. I know there are ways to make mass changes in genealogy software and then import the changes to my online trees. Even though I have backups I hesitate to do something that is not easily undone. But working from a list to delete people from my online tree is fairly mindless, so I frequently work on this while watching TV at night.

And I admit this is painful at first. And your criteria do not have to be hard and fast. Again, it is your tree. Bend the rules when it makes sense to do so. But remember your purpose and the reasons you decided to fix your family tree. The result will be a stronger and healthier tree. My tree currently has around 5,800 people on it.

5. Review for sources and accuracy.

Even though 5,800 people is still a lot, it is getting more manageable. Now I can circle back to the steps in the Genealogy Do-Over (or go-over). I am systematically going back through each generation on my direct lines. I’m not worrying about the siblings or those outside of my direct line right now. At this point, I am tagging those who may need additional work as unverified. That way, I can easily create a to-do list from my unverified tags. That keeps me from getting distracted and doing additional research before my clean-up is complete. My online tree is a work in progress, but I make it public in case someone can benefit from the work I’ve done. My hope is that it will help more than hinder.

Access my Ancestry.com Public Family Tree

1. “Why Pruning Your Tree is Important,” American Arborists, blog post (https://www.americanarborists.net/tree-tips/2017/march/why-is-pruning-your-tree-important-/ : accessed 10 December 2021), 7 March 2017.

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