When it comes to RootsTech Relatives…
As of 9:30 a.m. Eastern time today, The Legal Genealogist reportedly has 9,219 relatives attending the RootsTech 2023 conference either in person or virtually next week.
They’re all on my mother’s side (what’s up with my paternal Germans???), and though mostly in the United States (7,500+ of them), they’re spread out all over the world — 113 in Canada, 15 in the United Kingdom, five in Germany, four each in Australia and Ireland, a bunch of pairs in Ecuador, Japan and New Zealand, and lonely onlies in 13 other locations ranging from Central America through the Middle East.
Nine thousand plus relatives.
Yeah.
Right.
Color me skeptical.
Because the RootsTech Relatives relative-matching is based on the FamilySearch Family Tree — a collaborative one-world tree that historically has been undocumented and error-ridden — in past years, even the closest connections have been … um … let’s just say dubious.
So I set out this morning to test my RootsTech Relatives to see how many of my closest reported cousins might be likely correct, unproven or — based on what I know of my ancestors — just wrong.
Now… I’m not going to go looking at 9,000+ connections. I assume that anybody reported as a 12th cousin is at best unproven or — more probably — dead wrong. Because RootsTech Relatives lets you see how many matches you have by ancestor, I can already put a bunch in the “just dead wrong” category:
• My Baker line does not descend from the Samuel Baker who married Eleanor Winslow. DNA has definitively disproved that. Lop off 272 folks who get matched to me on that line.
• There is no way in God’s green earth that my Philip Shew, born around 1750, can be the son of Anna Elisabetha Kiessling, born in 1678. Folks, seriously, a 72-year-old mama in the 1750s? Wipe off another 65 matches.
• And I do not descend from two different sets of parents for my Arthur Buchanan. Really.
It’s these sorts of things that make me really skeptical — and I’ve given up every time I’ve tried to do even minor corrections to the tree. They’re too complicated, and somebody comes right along behind me and changes things back.
So I’ll be honest: I wasn’t expecting much in looking even just at my handful of fourth-to-fifth cousins — folks who should be close enough to a common ancestor that both our trees should be correct. So I looked at 29 supposed cousins in all: one fourth cousin, four fourth cousins once removed (4C1R), four fourth cousins twice removed (4C2R), two fourth cousins three times removed (4C3R), and 18 fifth cousins.
Color me — well… less skeptical, at least in these closer relationships.
My fourth cousin, in my Baker line, should be correct.
Of my 4C1R, there’s one that should be correct descending from my Shew-Battles ancestors; two Baker descendants that should be right, and one descending from my Battles-Jacobs fourth great grandparents that looks good.
Of my 4C2R, there’s one in my Fore line where DNA says there’s likely a link but I’m not sure the woman the cousin descends from is a sister of the woman I descend from, so I list that as unproven. The others — one each in my Gentry-Killen, Baker, and Wiseman lines — all look to be correct.
Of my 4C3R, there’s another in that unproven Fore line and one unproven on my side to the parents of a fifth great grandmother.
And of my fifth cousins, there’s one in the Fore line where DNA tells us his Culvin Fore line is related to my Jesse Fore line — but we can’t prove the parents of either Culvin or Jesse. The others all look correct: one in my Campbell-McInnis line; two in the Moore-Ballew line; two in the Battles-Jacobs line; two in the Baker line; three in the Baird line; and seven in my exceedingly prolific Buchanan-Jones line.
So… 29 calculated cousins to the fifth cousin level. None dead wrong. Three unproven. And 25 apparently correct — including some new folks I can reach out to and work with.
This is much much better than it’s been in the past. More connections, more accuracy.
Yeah.
I’ll go there.
Color me impressed.
Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “Color me…,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 25 Feb 2023).
SOURCES
Hi Judy—forgive my ignorance. How are you making these connections? Via DNA? I am very interested in the abundance of information in FamilySearch, and I use it far more than I used to. I do not like all of the inconsistencies in Ancestry plus having to pay in order to view records there that I found for my tree. Can you do a post or have you done a post on how you have made these connections?
These connections are solely based from the collaborative FamilySearch Family Tree. You have to be entered in the tree; your matches have to be entered in the tree; the tree software automatically matches you up. I know from other independent research that some of these lines are accurate and some are DNA-supported. All this system gives you is the tree matches.
Hi Judy,
Also ignorant here. I have my tree on Familysearch, and I am listed. However, I don’t see where my matches are? Could you tell me how to find them?
Thanks.
I don’t have any connections. I guess my relatives are not interested in genealogy.
Are you linked to the FamilySearch Family Tree and logged in? If either of those is a no, then you won’t have any connections.
Judy, I, too, have find connections of varying reliability. But what I do like this year is the ability to look at the matches by Family Line. My mother’s father’s parents were both German immigrants, and so far I only have 3 matches on his line, and those are at the 7th and 8th cousin level. But on my side at least, these lines are correct, since I researched the German church records myself. Thanks you another interesting and thought-provoking post.
Hi Judy, I also have a wealth of RootsTech probable relatives on my maternal side — reportedly 6K+, but only 15 on my paternal side. Of the 15 on Dad’s side, most look correct on my English (1873 arrival) and French side (1859 arrival). Maybe one day I’ll crack that paternal American line. And none on my German line.
Just checked and I have 14. All pretty bogus, no surprise. But it’s wild that some people have thousands and other less than 20z
It’s totally dependent on people entering their data into the FamilySearch Family Tree and registering to attend RootsTech. My paternal side is all German — and I have NO relatives on that side who are both in the tree and attending, even virtually.
I found this interesting feature this morning. My first cousin is not listed even tho I know she has a FS tree and is registered. My list starts with my second cousin. Then because no one in our families will cooperate my list skips to the fourth generation. I looked at some interesting ones, made screen shots of their “relationships” and will compare them to my well-documented tree. I’ve only found one dubious one out of the 50 I’ve looked at so far. It’s a fun, interesting feature to be taken lightly as all computer-generated comparisons are
Two thoughts (no, make that three):
(1) When I attended RootsTech 3 years ago, my closest relative was a 7th cousin–not even worth investigating. Now I see 2nd cousins. Times have changed.
(2) RelativeFinder is not created or owned by FamilySearch (FS). It is a 3rd-party app with permission to access the FS wiki-tree. This was explained to me when I complained that a “cousin” was attributed through a descendant of my g-grandfather’s guardian, not his father. The relationship is clearly designated on the FS tree, where his biological parents are also recorded, but the app apparently does not check that field.
(3) I was once a 13th cousin once removed from Anne Boleyn through my Howard line, and I’m not any more. Color me disappointed. Still… fun.
Look at all those Scottish names you mentioned!
Last year I had over 24,000 relatives thru RootsTech, and could not find anyone on one whole branch.
So far this year about 14,000, closest are 27 – 4th cousins. I recognize one name.
Fun parlor trick.