Hints for My Ancestors

"We've found a hint for your ancestor" was the title of the email from FamilySearch.  Great, I thought.  I could use a hint.  When I opened the email, this is what I saw.

Did I need a hint for Gust Froman?  I'd already found my grand-uncle Gust and plenty of information about him, too.  But the little blue button invited me to "Review My Relative's Hints."  Okay, let's see what the hints are, I thought.  So I clicked.

And look at the list of hints FamilySearch found for my ancestors and relatives.  Forty of them, all neat and tidy in alphabetical order by first name with direct links to the possible supporting documents.

To be sure, only a quarter of them are for direct-line ancestors, but even so I'm grateful for the hints, especially when my goal is to gather enough information about family members to recreate the family unit.

It will take me a while to work through this list of documents, evaluate them, attach them to individuals on FamilySearch Family Tree, and add the information, sources, and citations to my RootsMagic program.  I think the information will fill in some blanks and answer some questions.

I know Ancestry offers similar hints but I don't have a tree in Ancestry.  And RootsMagic offers hints which (in my opinion) are not the quickest nor easiest to use.  It's only recently that I began attaching documents more consistently on the FS Family Tree.  I wonder if that's why they sent this list.

One of the exciting aspects of these hints is that they can help find the women in our families.  Our ladies can be hard to trace if we find them after they're married and don't have a maiden name, or if we find them before marriage and don't have an idea who they married.  In this group of hints was a marriage record for one of my great-grandfather's sisters.  I had not searched for her marriage and still don't have a death date but now that I know her married name I can find her in census records and search for death information.

If you have a FamilySearch account and add sources to its Family Tree, do you receive emails like this one?

Thank you for the hints, FamilySearch.  I appreciate the help they are.

--Nancy.

Copyright ©2017 Nancy Messier. All Rights Reserved.
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