Find your cousins with Puzzilla and Puzzilla Premium -- Part Two

The first of the Puzzilla.org Premium specialized tools is the one designated as Targets. There is a pop-up explanation about Targets that explains that they are suggested starting points for new research and that they are experimental. They show persons with no child records, who reached child-bearing age, were born within 110 years ago and who lived within a specified place and time. In the default family tree diagram, that appears above, my ancestral lines show three red dots, indicating that these individuals are "Targets."

I decide to look at each of those particular individuals. Right from the start, I have a question about this particular indicator. Obviously, if these individuals are in my family tree diagram, they are my direct line ancestors. So they must've been married. They must have had children. So why don't they have any child records? Here is the first one of the Targets:

If I click on the link to "View in FamilyTree" I see that Targets are definitely "experimental." Margaret Turner, according to the FamilySearch.org Family Tree had ten children.

 But when I go to her descendents, I see a large number of the red squares that indicate Target ancestors. Here's a screenshot of the descendents from Margaret Turner.

So, it appears that the red squares additionally may indicate that I should show that person's descendancy view. The first of these new red squares or Targets that I click on, indeed does show a person who deserves additional research.

As a side note, FamilySearch Family Tree has, in my view point, matured to the point where the program is actually usable. Previously, there were so many unresolved duplicates and other errors that the program could not be safely used. Over the past few months, there have been some major upgrades and the data set is finally beginning to coalesce into a more useful content. Of course, this means that Puzzilla.org  is also becoming more useful.

Here is the person I clicked on among the descendents of Margaret Turner.

When I view this person in the Family Tree program, indeed this person is lacking in specifics and would merit additional research. Here is a screenshot showing the lack of detail available for this particular individual:

At this point, I decided that it would be a good idea to view the James P Hamilton and Margaret Turner family in the Descendancy View of Family Tree. I would consider the information about the James P Hamilton family to be suspect because of the use of the single initial "P" in the name of the father. I also find serious data problems in the tree extending from James P Hamilton. His grandfather is shown as living more than 120 years and his maternal grandmother was married before age 12. Here is the Descendancy View from the Family Tree:

Here are the descendents of James P Hamilton, including the James Hamilton I highlighted with Puzzilla.org. Unfortunately, the program has no historical record suggestions or hints for either the father, James P Hamilton, or his son, James Hamilton.

My conclusion is that there is a serious amount of work that needs to be done on the FamilySearch.org Family Tree. The indications that I get from just a brief look through Puzzilla.org is that adding the sources suggested by FamilySearch.org through their record hands will certainly produce additional new people not previously added to the Family Tree and very likely, enable me to correct many of the entries in the Family Tree.

This first tool from the Puzzilla.org Premium version proves to be valuable.

Here is the first installment of this series:

http://rejoiceandbeexceedingglad.blogspot.com/2015/04/find-your-cousins-with-puzzilla-and.html