How to correct bad information
Just started using this site and when I started filling in my tree, the site added a number of relationships . Some of these are demonstrably and provably wrong and need to be removed or changed. My question is: what is the proper way to accomplish this?
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You can undo every attachment you made between persons in Family Tree simply by detaching the persons from each other.
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Yes, you can undo other people's attachments. You are encouraged to change what others have done that isn't quite right.
Because this is an American colonial, there is a chance someone will redo what you undo and also a chance that others will thank you. To make peace, leave a Note explaining the new findings. Where to find Notes: under the Collaborate tab (web) and at the bottom of the Details page (app).
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Thanks, I'll look into that link. This particular issue involves a purported ancestor from the Virginia colony era that was long thought to be the family progenitor. Research and DNA comparisons have shown that the progenitor was in fact a later colonist not related to the original.
Also, I did not make the attachment, it was part of a string of attachments to my tree done by the site as I added grandparents that originated in another tree I presume.
Can I undo other people's attachments?
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PhilCrump Yes you can undo other people's work, but when I do this, I message them, tell them what I am doing and give them a link to the source indicating I have new information. I also encourage them to contact me if they have any questions. This seems to short cut any shock factor. People tend to look first, get mad, and ask questions later.
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I used to privately message other contributors but response rate was extremely low and now I realize most contributors are long gone from Family Tree. So now it is rare that I bother with PMs. Even so, my messages box on FamilySearch (not here) has over 800 threads.
Now I spend far more time on Notes, for the benefit of all present and future contributors. If past contributors return they will find the notes just as easily or perhaps more easily than messages. So many people loose track of their logins, and just make a new one.
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dontiknowyou I understand completely. When I message someone, I tell them what I am doing, why I am doing it (source links, or whatever inserted), and if they have questions, let me know. LOL That way I am not hampered by non-responses, which is at the 99% rate, I think. I love finding other's notes, and I will add notes in a life story too.
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Gail thanks for that, this may be tough to fix as the original information was published in books and online going way back and, while the new information refuting it has been around several years, I still encounter the old info everywhere. I see there is an ongoing attempt to correct it on a competing site.
What is the easiest way for me to identify the main people who are working on my family on this site?
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Ah, PhilCrump , you look at the right side of the page when in a specific ancestor's view. You will see a section called Latest Changes, which displays the last three, and below it you will see "Show All".
That will give you a chronological list of every change made by anyone since the creation of the record. You can look at the nature of each change to see who would be interested in your message, including who added inappropriate sources or family members and all sorts of other changes. For example you may see people changing place names to a standard form. Some of these people may not necessarily be interested in a new parent that should replace an existing. Also, if someone has not done anything the past 5 years, I tend to ignore them too. It's a judgement call on who to message and who to not. Also, most will not respond. But, seeing that complete list is amazing. You can even see who deleted things and WHAT they deleted.
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