Am I to believe the information in Gedcom files found on Ancestry.com?

Question:My only comment to add to the consensus..
"Believe" is terminology that is not appropriate to genealogy. It is one topic that should be completely based in factual and proven documentation. Some people think it involves opinions, or rolls of the dice. It may seem so cool to find what is said to be your "history" online, without realizing that family trees online, are not necessarily research.. they are what someone else has posted. This includes ancestry, familysearch (lds files), rootsweb, or anywhere.
I am an outspoken advocate here that it is not all online, and what is online, may have errors. There more you do your own independent work, finding and using ORIGINAL records, the better your chances of being able to spot what is accurate and what isn't. If someone says their source is someone elses' gedcom... raise the skepticism flag.
And.. some of it can be right.
edit-
re the statement that most people take pains to insure their files are accurate.. that is not always what I see. In fact, I see tons of files that BRAG that the submitter hasn't bothered to verify the info. but it *might* help someone. In reality, those are exactly the files that HURT researchers.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: My only comment to add to the consensus..
"Believe" is terminology that is not appropriate to genealogy. It is one topic that should be completely based in factual and proven documentation. Some people think it involves opinions, or rolls of the dice. It may seem so cool to find what is said to be your "history" online, without realizing that family trees online, are not necessarily research.. they are what someone else has posted. This includes ancestry, familysearch (lds files), rootsweb, or anywhere.
I am an outspoken advocate here that it is not all online, and what is online, may have errors. There more you do your own independent work, finding and using ORIGINAL records, the better your chances of being able to spot what is accurate and what isn't. If someone says their source is someone elses' gedcom... raise the skepticism flag.
And.. some of it can be right.
edit-
re the statement that most people take pains to insure their files are accurate.. that is not always what I see. In fact, I see tons of files that BRAG that the submitter hasn't bothered to verify the info. but it *might* help someone. In reality, those are exactly the files that HURT researchers.

most of that info is usually pretty acurate but there is always going to be some of it that might not be correct.
all those files are created and uploaded by individual people who are researching their ancestry so i would assume that they try to make sure it is accurate for their own piece of mind.

The great majority of these records are accurate, however my rule is to verify the information from 2 independent sources if at all possible. In over 20 years as a reference librarian, I've seen all sorts of mistakes in many places, including obituaries and the SS death index.

Good Luck

You shouldn't take anything in the "canned" family trees as accurate until you can verify the information with the appropriate sources. With the canned family trees there is a lot of copying going on and with that copying comes a lot of perpetuating errors. People assume that because it is already in someones family tree, that it must be right. For example, my dad has the same name as his brother who died 12 year before his birth. There is a tree online that has this baby's date of birth and date of death being married to my mom!!! This baby lived only three months, yet someone was stupid enough to copy the information AND record the marriage. Not too swift in my opinion, so the moral of the story is not to import anyone elses work. Go the extra mile to document and insure that your tree is correct.

Ditto with HSK. I have seen info in other people's trees that cross with mine where they have a man that died in 1841 and fathered a son that was born in 1846. How did he father a child 5 years after he died? Maybe in today's science world of test tube babies and stuff, but not back then. When I get to the point that I put mine online, it will be accurate because I am not adding anyone I cannot prove or verify.

So, use those files as clues, but verify the facts for yourself before you consider it accurate.

I'm laughing with Violet. One gal, yrs. ago, with a connection to one of my early VA lines, had my 12th Great Aunt, b. ca. 1659, married and having issue in 1767. Go figure.

My answer...When pigs fly!

Go with HSK, Violet and Lady Bayard.

Actually, information in family trees on ANY website must be viewed as CLUES not as absolute fact. No way should you consider it accurate without verifying. The information is subscriber submitted, mostly not documented or poorly documented. Even when you see the same info repeatedly by many different subscribers that is no guarantee at all it is correct. A lot of people copy without verifying.

Also, if for instance, if a person has Family Tree Maker and a subscription to Genealogy.Com, they can merge other people's trees into theirs and then upload those trees to various websites including back to Genealogy.Com. This means people are more interested in collecting a lot of names and not quality research. Unfortunately,Genealogy.Com encourages it. Also if you have a Public Member Tree with Ancestry.Com, they not only reference you back to records but to other Family Trees.

I saw one guy's tree where he said one click of the mouse in One World Tree and he came up with his tree. If anything is trash it is Ancestry.Com's One World Tree. When they set it up they took liberties with information people had already submitted to Ancestry World Tree and put it in One World Tree but they combined the different info people had on the same person. However, I have seen more than once where they combined two people into one.

A golden rule I use with any family history data is unless it's an original source treat it as suspect until such time as you can confirm the data as correct.

Good luck and good hunting

People are human and I have also found lines sunbmitted with women of 55+ having babies!
Unfortunately, the old advice still holds true - Check Out the Sources Yourself Before You Believe It!!!!!!!!!!!!!!