Five simple steps to get the most out of your family tree on Ancestry

1: Start with hints

As you add information to your Ancestry tree, you will notice the hints that appear. Diving deep into the Ancestry records, the technology will identify documents within our historic collections that may match your ancestor. You can choose to accept or reject the hint, or – if you are not sure – select ‘maybe’. 

2: Tell the story

As you collect information about each ancestor you gain a feel for the story of their lives. It’s never too soon to start writing this down. Go to ‘Life Story’ and use the biography field to describe an overview of their life. As you discover more, use the ‘edit’ button to amend or add to their biography as time goes by.

3: Look at the facts

On the ‘Facts’ tab you’ll be able to view a timeline of facts relating to your ancestor’s life, and it is here that the sources that you have added about your ancestor will be displayed. Sources are the records that demonstrate where we found our nuggets of information.

4: Illustrating with photos

Family photos are among the most precious of family history records. Go to ‘Gallery’ to add copies to your ancestor’s profile. To view all the photos you have added to a family tree, return to your tree, and use the image icon.

5: Keep yourself organised

Help to keep yourself organised by utilising the MyTreeTags™ tool on Ancestry. Having tagged an ancestor, for instance with a DNA tag, brickwall tag, or ‘actively researching tag’, you can subsequently search by tag and collate a list of all ancestors with that tag.

Explore your family history at Ancestry.

Enjoy more family history advice, including an article on tracing royal roots, in the January 2023 issue of Family Tree. Get your copy here.