Have you created or worked with an Ancestry.com Public Member Tree lately? I have recently started one myself by uploading a Gedcom. I’ve done extensive research on a few lines, and I wanted to be able to share the information with others.

The great thing about these trees is that you can link Ancestry.com records directly to people in your tree as well as uploading other materials that you may have in your personal collection. As you do this, Ancestry.com will give you suggestions of records that may tie into your family tree. The site will also help you find other people who are researching the same family lines.

The suggestion function, overall, is pretty good. Does it sometimes make suggestions that are incorrect? Of course it does. But overall, I’ve found the suggestions to be accurate. In addition to being able to very quickly link the records that I had found previously for my family, I’ve found some records that I never would have thought to search for.

For example, I knew that my great-grandfather was from England and had been married there before immigrating to the United States and marrying my great-grandfather. I didn’t know, however, that he immigrated via Canada and married there as well. I had no reason to search for my great-grandfather in Canadian records as there were no family stories or previously identified records that suggested he had spent any time in that country. But Ancestry.com’s search algorithm was able to find him, and now I know something about him that I otherwise would probably not have learned.