What to do when I find incorrect information in a tree

DBritting

I know that many people would rather be royal than right, but so many errors in a few trees which have conflicting lineage listed for the same people. Names, dates, ancestors do not match anything concrete and there are no sources or documents. Instead, I have found information that shows that these trees are making false claims. Who checks the information before it is posted? I am so frustrated trying to find legitimate, verifiable information to place in my tree, but all I keep seeing are varying lists of lineage that cannot be supported. Can anyone help me?

Gordon Collett

The users who post information to Family Tree bear full responsibility for its accuracy. No one reviews it before it is posted. However, all users can help correct anything and the goal with Family Tree is to all work together to get the best, most accurate information there is to be displayed in Family Tree.

Family Tree was created in 2012 as a combination of almost everything that has been submitted to FamilySearch in the past 125 years. There is a lot of duplication and a lot of unsourced data. Part of the major work we all have here in Family Tree is to get all this corrected and sourced so that is it reliable and to get rid of all the fabricated data. Don't believe anything you see on Family Tree that is not thoroughly documented with quality sources from original documents.

For more information see: https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Fraudulent_Genealogies and https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/76708/epidemic-false-medieval-ancestries-for-colonial-immigrants

Dennis J Yancey

see:

Making changes within FamilySearch Family Tree

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUYT0_CvbBU

How to Correct Relationships

https://www.familysearch.org/help/helpcenter/article/how-do-i-correct-parent-child-relationships-in-family-tree

Correcting Mistakes in Family Tree

https://www.familysearch.org/en/blog/correct-mistakes-family-tree

Merging Records

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGMC-jy3p6M  

WHY ARE THERE SO MANY DUPLICATES

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=in4PZ2h-49M

UNTANGLING A MESS YOU FIND IN FAMILYSEARCH FAMILY TREE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swa3Ub56dKI

WHY USE FAMILYSEARCH FAMILYTREE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwRSRZ9amlM

Dennis J Yancey

But yes - if you are talking mainly about ROYAL LINES - yeh there is a ton of bad information out there IN and OUT of FamilySearch.

even much of the info that really comes from supposedly trustable "royal sources" is often very questionable once you get past about the year 1300 or so . . . I mean when you are the KING and can create your own family tree with whatever details you want . . . then how trustworthy is it . . .

Personally I would never trust these royal lines much beyond like the year 1200 or so. whether in FS or on some other site.

https://www.familysearch.org/en/blog/i-have-my-family-tree-back-to-adam-and-eve

DBritting

Sure wish there were a way to have some control over the mis-information. At the very least, when people add names to their lineage, they should check the facts. Putting parents ages at 9 and 5 years old is blatently stupid and it would seem that someone would figure that out! Maybe a way to have websites put up red flags when ridiculous facts are detected.

DBritting

I am less likely to put my family tree information in your website now that I understand that others can change my information, regardless of their facts being unsourced and incorrect! That is abysmal! If I have birth, marriage and death records, then my facts ARE sourced and anyone who removes my data is a fake.

Dennis J Yancey

This is a collaborative genealogical database and system. It is critical to understand that from the get go.

Information in the family tree is not "mine" versus "yours"

That paradigm can have BOTH PROS and CONS

There are surely reason to consider a standalone locally installed database like FTM, RootsMagic or Ancestral Quest which gives you total control.

HOWEVER - PLEASE consider some of the PROS you may not have thought about,

check these links out:

WHY USE FAMILYSEARCH FAMILYTREE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwRSRZ9amlM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epUcr4cH_EQ  

MAKING THE MOST OF FAMILYSEARCH

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMmZSZnTDbw

Dennis J Yancey

And you are totally right - if you are looking for some tool or system to allow you to post your pure untainted well documented family tree on the web and not have to worry about others changing your data - FamilySearch Family Tree is not the way to go. It never claimed to be that.

Its a totally different paradigm.

There are various other tools out there for that - if that is what you are looking for.

One of my favorites is TNG

https://tngsitebuilding.com/

Dennis J Yancey

but you can have the best of both worlds. You can indeed use a tool like TNG, or numerous other tools to post your private file on line.

and you can still use Family Search for other reasons.

Don't throw the baby out with the wash.

Check out all these other valuable tools that come TOTALLY FREE from FamilySearch

check out: https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/115137/list-of-different-key-sections-of-familysearch#latest