Direct Ancestor – tags on trees

I posted the following on FaceBook and got many comments on the topic; both pro and con, so I thought I would share it with a different audience.

For my genealogy friends – Tags on trees –

I came across an interesting tag on a family tree and I thought others might like to see it.

The tree owner (hybridreborn) put a “Direct Ancestor” tag on a person on her tree, and I assume it is telling the viewer that the person is on the branch the tree is focused on.

Direct Ancestor tag

It is a smart thing to do since so many tree have dozens of branches but no indication at to which branch is the main one for the owner.

Direct Ancestor tag 2

The home person can sometimes be the indicator of the branch but if the tree home person is the Great Great Grandfather then the owners branch is not easily known.

So, tree owner hybridreborn has solved an important problem. A problem I always wondered how to fix.

She shows the main family branch with the RED tags:

Direct Ancestor tag 3Direct Ancestor tag 4

her tree is on Ancestry dot com

Tree name: Martinez Family Tree
Tree owner: hybridreborn
owner is from Alabama, USA


Some of the comments mentioned the fact that other systems, [this is on Ancestry dot com] already have a way of showing the Direct Branch.

Some questioned the fact that the large red circle tag could not be put on a person that had a photo because it would be the tag or the photo.

Some questioned why the red tag was only on one of the couples since the DNA comes from both parents.

Some mentioned that they have separate trees just for a direct branch, so they don’t need tags.


So you can see there are as many opinions about this “Direct Ancestor” tag as there were, I assume, about  electricity and the light bulb.

I hope this post will help you with your family tree.

Thank You

Jose from Clarkston, Michigan, USA

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