We have all been there ... as enthusiastic newbies who achieve fast and deep results using leaf hints from public trees and other voluteer-provided public sources.
Perhaps an "independent" way to show newbies we are not all jaded ... ask them to test any of their Tree's that go back to ... say... the year 1600 or beyond using FTM's Data Error Report (Publish/Person Reports/Data Error Report).
Yes, it's a tool known to have lots of bugs but it still flags real errors. Just the variety and volume of errors uncovered by this report should warn everyone out there about how untrustworthy the public tree and source data really is, including the One World Tree and other such "trusted" Trees and sources.
Even census reports have unintentional "bugs" from those good volunteers translating the hard-to-read handwritten data into electronic format, or census takers in the 1800's conversing with someone with a heavy foreign accent who then try to phonetically spell the client's foreign name, or the faulty memory of respondents in the 1800's who aren't used to the daily precision of calendars and watches, so they "ballpark" their kids birthdates, etc., etc.
Vital fact data (birth, death, etc.) from primary sources such as the government or consenus-agreed courtly recorded histories are probably the only reliable sources one should really count on.
Have fun with this hobby, but please be very skeptical.
Perhaps an "independent" way to show newbies we are not all jaded ... ask them to test any of their Tree's that go back to ... say... the year 1600 or beyond using FTM's Data Error Report (Publish/Person Reports/Data Error Report).
Yes, it's a tool known to have lots of bugs but it still flags real errors. Just the variety and volume of errors uncovered by this report should warn everyone out there about how untrustworthy the public tree and source data really is, including the One World Tree and other such "trusted" Trees and sources.
Even census reports have unintentional "bugs" from those good volunteers translating the hard-to-read handwritten data into electronic format, or census takers in the 1800's conversing with someone with a heavy foreign accent who then try to phonetically spell the client's foreign name, or the faulty memory of respondents in the 1800's who aren't used to the daily precision of calendars and watches, so they "ballpark" their kids birthdates, etc., etc.
Vital fact data (birth, death, etc.) from primary sources such as the government or consenus-agreed courtly recorded histories are probably the only reliable sources one should really count on.
Have fun with this hobby, but please be very skeptical.