Proposed by one party and not yet confirmed by the other. Visible, but never counted as verified.
How it works
A tree is only worth as much as the agreement behind it.
Anyone can type a name into a box. What makes a family record trustworthy is whether the people it describes agree with it. That is the whole idea behind howWorld Ancestry works — and it is the part that is least obvious from the outside, so here it is in full.
The lifecycle of a connection
Step 1. Someone adds a person
You add a relative — a parent, a sibling, a grandmother you never met. If they are living and have an account, we match them. If not, the profile is a placeholder that they can later claim as their own.
Step 2. The relationship is proposed, not asserted
Adding a relative creates a proposed relationship. It appears in your tree immediately, marked Pending, so you can keep working — but it is visibly unconfirmed to everyone who sees it.
Step 3. The people it names confirm it
The other person in the relationship (or the owner of that profile) is notified and can confirm it. Once confirmed, the relationship is marked Confirmed and counts toward the tree's verified connections.
Step 4. Evidence strengthens a claim
Anyone can attach evidence to a profile or relationship: a photograph, a document, a recorded account from an elder, a link to an archive record. Evidence does not auto-confirm anything — it gives reviewers something to weigh.
Step 5. Disagreements become disputes
If a relative believes a connection is wrong, they raise a dispute rather than deleting the work. The relationship is flagged, both accounts are recorded, and it stops being presented as settled fact until it is resolved.
Step 6. Duplicate people get merged
When two families have each recorded the same ancestor, either side can propose a merge. Both sets of details are shown side by side and nothing is discarded until the owners of both profiles agree.
What the status badges mean
Every relationship in a tree carries one of these. They are never hidden, and a tree never silently presents a pending connection as a settled one.
Agreed by the people the relationship names. This is what makes a World Ancestry tree different from a private guess.
A relative has formally disagreed. Both positions and any evidence are preserved while it is reviewed.
What counts as evidence
Deliberately broad. A platform that only accepts state-issued paper excludes most of the world, so a recorded account from a grandmother is admissible evidence here — attributed to her, dated, and weighed alongside everything else.
- Photographs, including annotated family portraits and group photos
- Civil documents — birth, marriage, death, baptism and naturalisation records
- Recorded oral accounts from family elders, with the speaker credited
- Community and religious records: naming ceremonies, clan registers, burial records
- Correspondence, diaries, wills, land documents and school records
- Links to external archives, where the record itself stays with the archive
How a dispute is resolved
- 1A relative raises a dispute, stating what they believe is wrong and why.
- 2The relationship is flagged. It stays visible, but is no longer shown as confirmed anywhere in the tree.
- 3Both parties can attach evidence and respond. Nothing either side has already contributed is deleted.
- 4A reviewer weighs the accounts and the evidence, then records an outcome with a reason.
- 5The outcome is written into the record, so anyone looking later can see what was decided and on what basis.
Start with one person you remember
You do not need documents or a plan. Add yourself, add one relative, and let the rest of the family fill in what they know.