When Familysearch creates a person, where does the information come from if no references?
When Familysearch creates a person, or adds a relationship, with no sources attached, how do they know it is accurate? For example, a person is created & parents are added by Familysearch in 2012 without sources. And then 5 years pass before someone else adds information to that person's profile, which may or may not be accurate. How did Familysearch know to create this person? Can I be sure that the relationships created are valid?
Best Answer
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A big part of the work we users have for us here in Family Tree is cleaning up all this old data from previous databases that was all imported into Family Tree.
Although Family Tree was created from many different sources, there really are only two main type of these 2012 records from the original import into Family Tree.
1) Records that are from old extraction or indexing programs. Often these consist of just a child with birth information and parents names or a couple's marriage record. These are actually pretty easy to find sources for. Just take the information in the record and use those exact values in the main search page which searches all the historical records databases. Generally a match which is the source for the record will come right up.
2) Records created by researchers over the past 127 years that were submitted to FamilySearch and have now been compiled into Family Tree. These older database either never had sources or did not have sources in a form that could be brought into Family Tree. All we can do with these records is to know that someone, somewhere, concluded these were correct, take them as a starting point and do what many people have done over the past decades: do the research all over again and this time record the sources to support the information. One of the goals of Family Tree is to be a place to finally record this research once and for all properly sourced and documented so that no one every has to do the same research ever again.
More information about these records imported into Family Tree in 2012, can be found in this webinar about why there are a lot of duplicates in Family Tree: https://fh.lib.byu.edu/2020/06/23/duplicates-in-family-tree-part-1-why-theyre-there-and-how-to-find-them-kathryn-grant-10-june-2020/
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Answers
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Hello JenGen465
Welcome to the FamilySearch community, and thank you for your question regarding FamilySearch as the Contributor.
Why is FamilySearch a contributor in Family Tree?
You sometimes see FamilySearch as a contributor in the Latest Changes column in Family Tree.
Information transferred from a previous system
Much of the information in Family Tree transferred from a previous system named new.familysearch.org.
For information that the system transferred, Family Tree lists either a specific contributor or FamilySearch. The date is the date of the information transfer to Family Tree, not the original contribution date. If a user changes the information in Family Tree after the information transfer, the contributor information shows the actual contributor and change date.
Policy or software update
Software updates and policy changes sometimes require us to reenter information in your ancestor’s record. Or new sources can cause a change.
Standardized dates and places
Starting on 30 May 2019, a system-wide update began to standardize many dates and places in Family Tree. This update affects about 15 percent of the dates and places in Family Tree that showed without a standardized value.
- This standardization affects dates and places in the Vitals section and the couple relationship section.
- The system standardized dates or places only if the standardized value very closely matched the value it replaced.
- Users who are watching the person did not receive a notification of this change.
- You can identify these changes because the contributor is listed as “FamilySearch,” and the date is on or near 30 May 2019.
This update helps users because it removes the data problem “Missing Standardized Date,” and “Missing Standardized Location,” saving the user time. It also assists the site in providing more accurate record hints and creating more reliable data. Standardized dates help you find ancestors more easily when you search the entire site.
I hope that we understood and provided information that answers your question. Thank you for using Community and we hope this link or the Help Centre provides the answers you seek.
If you need further help regarding this question, please reply directly to me by clicking my contact name next to my picture.
I would like to thank you for your desire to seek out your ancestors and wish you joyful success as you do your family history work.
You can view more knowledge articles in Help (the small circle around the question mark at top right of screen)> Help Centre.
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