Those little leaves are tempting to just click and accept, particularly when they are connected to another’s user’s tree. Early in my ancestry research I accepted my mom’s cousin’s tree and the others that I found as vetted facts. I was humming along thinking it was great and simple and marveled at the progress that I was making.
After I had built a sizable tree, I found there were errors all over the place. I discovered this after getting a message from a more experienced user and then started looking further all over the tree. I was deflated. I contemplated what to do.
These days I’ve made my research tree private and do not accept the hints for others family tree data. Before I had done that I was the first person to research one family branch and I had made a mistake in accepting a record. I corrected the record but now it’s out there where other people have incorporated my research into their trees. I’ve made comments on other’s trees but it’s ignored. So, my solution is a private tree for me and being wary of what others have put it theirs. I will peek in a new tab at their tree but 9 times out of 10 I see mistakes and move on. Sometimes I’ll see something that I’ll research further and once in a while I may get lucky.
There were so many mistakes in my original tree that I had that I have left it dormant and private and started over from scratch scrutinizing each record to match the person in a new private tree. It’s worked well for years for me.
Happy hunting…
Our Humble Road 