There has been a lot of talk about the “new look” of Ancestry.com. I’m not going to discuss that here mainly because it’s been hashed over on other blogs and forums and, frankly the way things look is often superficial anyway.

However.

I took a look at the “lifestory” for John George Trautvetter just to see what all the fuss was about.

What frustrated me was that Ancestry.com autogenerated a year of immigration for my ancestor that simply is not true. Ancestry.com  apparently concluded that because my ancestor was in Germany in 1844 and in the United States in 1860 that he immigrated in 1860. It even put that year in the “lifestory” for John George as shown below.

 

Based upon what is in my tree, John George would have immigrated between 1844 and 1860–not in 1860.

I know when John George immigrated, but haven’t linked that information to my tree at Ancestry.com. My tree at Ancestry.com is generally for my own personal use only and not complete at all. John George and his family appear on a passenger manifest arriving in Baltimore in July of 1853.

If the “trees” with wacky information was not bad enough, now Ancestry.com is autogenerating it.

And why on Earth do I need a picture of a child petting a nursing calf to illustrate German migration?