The Deadly Virus Attacking Your Family Tree – Protect It From ‘UnProvid’

The world is overwhelmed right now with the ongoing tragedy that is Covid. The second wave in many countries has sent people back inside where many are taking refuge in family tree research. This keeps them safe and occupied, but there is a family tree ‘deadly virus’ too, especially spread amongst those with less experience at genealogy. I call it UnProvid, and it spreads like wildfire.

What is UnProvid?

UnProvid is information accepted without question. By far the greatest source of infection appears to be other people’s family trees and it really does promulgate like a deadly virus. For example, one person puts something in their family tree. This generates hints to other people who have ancestors with similar names in their trees.

All it takes is one person to accept the hint without checking that it is information about the same individual and that the information itself is valid…and the virus is on its way. Once more than one person has that information connected to their tree, it gains credibility. So more people accept it.

Before you know it, that piece of information looks like the accepted wisdom. At this point almost everyone will see a page full of family tree hints saying the same thing and decide it must be right. CLICK…accepted.

STOP!

NEVER ACCEPT INFORMATION WITHOUT CHECKING IT THOROUGHLY! It will kill that part of your tree if it is wrong. Every further step you take from that point on will be wrong. It will not be your family. It doesn’t belong in your tree. Why would you want that in your tree?

Immunise Your Tree From This Deadly Virus

Check the sources. These should be cited by the other researchers. Look at the original images yourself if possible.

Are you absolutely sure that this great piece of information is for your ancestor and not someone else with a similar name? Check the context, dates, places, other people mentioned…does it all tally? Critical thinking is one of the greatest skills to develop as a family tree researcher.

I’ve actually gone one step further. You can adjust your hint settings so that you do not even see hints from other people’s trees, and I absolutely recommend it. In this way you still get record hints as a starting point, but the tree hints are tucked away out of sight.

You still need to vet the record hints thoroughly before deciding whether to accept them. However, you are beginning from at least one step closer to the actual evidence than by accepting tree hints.

Do not worry that you will run out of hints. It’s highly unlikely. The number will be less overwhelming (I lost over 14000 hints at Ancestry when I turned tree hints off, phew!), but as you analyse each one and integrate the information you choose to accept, more will be generated.

And remember, you can and should research using your own search techniques and other databases as well. Hints are our friend if used correctly, but they are just the tip of the research iceberg. Used incorrectly, they are worse than useless, and a deadly virus to our family tree.