Peerage Trees
My tree showed our family connected to a Laird and subsequently an Earl. All exciting. As I had time to review it I found someone had mistaken a Katherine Ross with a Catherine Ross. Easy enough. What they had done was not checked other linkages to support the connection, like the marriages of Catherine /Katherine Ross and children, and find source documents. The correct peerage line was Catherine, where and our line was Katherine. We were not related to the Laird or the Earl. Even the Earl had other children added which were not supported by peerage genealogies. May I suggest that in order to stop users freely being able to connect to peerage lines that such peerage lines be locked and managed by someone at FS. Any changes, connections, merging, etc, would need to pass through the Peerage Tree Custodian to be reviewed and approved. Otherwise, so many errors will creep in. ( In the same way that we don't want users connecting to famous people or celebrities.) We do want it to be a correct Tree. The Custodian would act as a gatekeeper to ensure the integrity of the Tree.
Comments
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I appreciate that FS is a collective Tree and rather than have private trees with unsubstantiated tree linkages. It is preferable that the followers sort out what is correct rather than have FS get involved and take up the limited time of FS consultants.
However, when Peerage linkages already have a settled Tree that is beyond reasonable doubt and settled by an authority (e.g. Burke’s Peerage(burkespeerage.com)) Then to maintain the integrity of FS, any users wanting to link to a known Peerage Tree should provide and satisfy the Genealogical Proof Standard with sources that show either 1) Low - a preponderance of evidence 2) Middle - clear, cogent and convincing; or 3) High - beyond reasonable doubt. The Reason Statement should be made clear what is required to establish the authenticity of a linkage to a Peer and that it will be reviewed by someone (Peerage Tree Custodian ) who can verify its authenticity. Geni.com for example has Custodians, who protect any false errors in each Peerage Tree.
My suggestion is that only be done for those identified as Peers, eg. they have a Title or have been identified in Burke's Peerage; or The Scots Peerage by Sir Robert Douglas; or Main Page (thepeerage.com); etc. It will ensure the integrity of the FS Tree and poor research, even when unintentional.
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