Tips for Expanding Your Family Tree
at OneGreatFamily
Between one and three million names are
submitted to OneGreatFamily each month, making it
the fastest-growing collaborative family tree
available online. This database growth benefits
everyone who has common ancestry. In many cases,
the new names help fill gaps in family trees or
provide clues to new genealogy discoveries. In
other cases, these names provide additional
evidence or support for information that is
already part of OneGreatFamily. In any instance
where merging and matching takes place within
OneGreatFamily, those who share common ancestors
have new opportunities to collaborate on their
genealogies.
Even with all of these new
names pouring in, some members haven't seen
additions to their family tree. If you are among
these individuals, we have a few
recommendations:
Be patient - With nearly 500,000 unique
visitors each month, someone is likely to submit
information on your family tree in the near
future. You may not see any growth in your family
tree for some time, but then you may see a flurry
of activity that affects your family tree.
Be proactive - Find other websites that
include your ancestral names and invite those site
visitors to participate on OneGreatFamily.
Continue to research your family tree to try to
take it back to the next generation. With each
generation, the probability of being able to find
common ancestors in OneGreatFamily increases
significantly. For example, recently one user
submitted 6 names to OneGreatFamily. After
receiving no additions to his family tree, he
decided to find and add one more person one
generation back. After adding that one person,
OneGreatFamily quickly found and added over 55,000
ancestors to his family tree.
Be watchful - Pay attention to your
GenMail notifications, merge indicators (!), and
New Stars Messages. We send GenMail email messages
each week to let people know if their family trees
are growing. If you are not receiving these
messages, you may need to update your email
address or preferences. You should also continue
to visit OneGreatFamily to update your family tree
and see if there are any signs of activity on your
family tree.
Be careful - Verify the information you
have entered into OneGreatFamily is as complete
and accurate as possible. This will help other
members of OneGreatFamily who may be looking for
your family line to know when they have found it.
You are likely not the only person trying to find
connections to your ancestral lines in
OneGreatFamily, so you will want to be as helpful
as possible with the information you provide.
As OneGreatFamily continues to grow, we are
committed to the success of each of our members in
furthering genealogy research and connecting to
work that has already been completed in
OneGreatFamily.
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