My tree shows lots of folks as being my ancestors that I now know are incorrect.
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I hear the arguments for one communal tree. But I wonder whether that does any good if the communal tree is just wrong. It seems terribly difficult to repair errors. My tree shows lots of folks as being my ancestors that I now know are incorrect (some that I may have added by mistake in the past, some that other people may have added by mistake). When I try to correct those entries, I so far can't find an obvious way to delete all the long string of incorrect persons going back in time. So when I try to correct to some of the correct names, it may mess up the profile page of people who are in other folks' tree; so I gave up trying to fix it. There should be easier buttons (more obvious buttons) to delete a person (or to delete a string of persons) when that person (and his/her ancestors) really should not be in my tree. And I suppose that later on, if someone adds folks back in to my tree that are incorrect, I'll have to keep on watching it and keep on fixing it. Maybe eventually it will dampen down to where everyone at some point may agree on the ancestral path, and stop fiddling with it; but that may take a while before uninformed folks (me or others) stop messing with it.
I suggest that it may be better to let each person have their own separate tree; with folks being able to see my opinion of who my ancestors are; and with me being able to see who other cousins think their ancestors are. That way, I can test my assumed ancestral path against other similar ancestral paths to try to evaluate which may be more correct.
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Don't correct any names. The problem almost always is a wrong relationship between two correct profiles. Simply detach the most recent ancestor who is not the correct ancestor.
Do that on the descendant's profile, Details page, in the Parents block. Beside the descendant's name is a pencil-and-paper icon. That is your edit button.
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I suggest that it may be better to let each person have their own separate tree
Good news! That exists over on Ancestry.com.
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I have been researching for 40 plus years. I do not have my family tree online. I decided I wanted to share the info I have found so it wouldnt be lost when I am gone. I have some info that no one else has found about some of my ancestors. I have spent years in many libraries & archives & found info that cant be found online. I wanted to put it on Family Search because you & your workers have spent many laboring hours of researching yourself & are not bought by a corporation that has nothing to do with genealogy or that doesnt care about genealogy except for making money off people as other sites do.
But when I realized you have communal trees that anyone can add or change I want NO part of that either. I WILL NOT be part of a tree that I know is incorrect by people that only research by copying & pasting someone else's tree & dont bother to check to see if the research is correct or not. Or that add to their tree because of a "hint" your company gives without knowing if that suggestion or hint is accurate or not. Because time wasnt taken by new researchers to investigate if the info belongs to their ancestor or not.
I will not spend my time trying to correct a tree that others have buggered up. And there are many buggered up trees out there. I want to spend my time researching, finding new leads, new info & sources instead. Until there is a place I can add the info I spent many laboring hours to find & a place where I can add many notes on each of my ancestors I will keep what I have worked so hard on to myself & hope a descendant of mine will continue my work.
People also need to be given credit for finding info others didnt. I ALWAYS give others credit for work that was given to me for their hard work. What I have shared I was not given credit for as it went viral the source & my acknowledgement was lost.
PEOPLE NEED TO REALIZE SOURCES ARE WHAT MAKE TREES FACTUAL. And when sources are lost how do we know anything is accurate. I would suggest that something CANNOT BE ADDED to a tree unless it has a source or notes explaining why we think what we entered is possibly correct. There could be a place for primary, secondary & what we received from others without sources to determine how accurate or not what we have is. Also that NO ONE can change the tree we worked so hard on & we have individual trees.
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@Sundown41 I understand completely. I have multiple trees in Ancestry (so many relatives and in-laws want their history researched and collected for them). Those trees are stable (although forever a work in progress). However, I have discovered a lot of benefits to putting my information in FamilySearch as well. I have not experienced too much bad data added. Some yes, but the contacts I have made in FamilySearch and the information I have gained from others far outweigh the problem you are worried about. I have bumped into a bunch of 5th and 6th cousins, and a 3rd or two and learned an enormous amount of information from their research and stories. Also, FamilySearch is - by far - the best place to upload images and documents. I put them into albums and share the link with family and friends. You don't need to have an account to see it, plus no one can delete my images. They can only untag them, but if you have the link to the album, you can always see the images. Free, of course.
Oh, and sources are only factual if they are correctly applied. Someone once accused me of highjacking her grandmother. This lady had sources, but so did I. She didn't even look at my sources but I took the extra step she did not and discovered there were two women in the same small town with the same name at the same time (married to different men and born of different parents). Because I didn't slam dunk her with rudeness, we collaborated after that since our ancestors likely probably knew each other.
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Another option @Sundown41 is to share your information in Genealogies. These trees are view-only. You can upload what you have without having to import any of the information into the Family Tree.
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