Two similar ancestors, but not the same person
My 6th great grandfather is listed as the wrong person, and everytime I change it to the correct person, someone goes in and reverses the changes. I have physical proof of the information on him and even posted it on the one that's connected to my tree (which is not the correct person). How do I switch these two's positions so it's correct? One is my 6th great grandfather and the other is like my 10th cousin seven times removed.
Answers
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Have you tried contacting the person who is reversing your changes?
Due to the collaborative nature of the tree, you cannot stop such changes. Apart from contacting those responsible, and they may not respond, all you can do is post copious notes on the record and keep an eye on it so that you can change it back again.
Not very helpful, I'm afraid.
Regards
Graham Buckell
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Piggybacking off solid advice Graham shared of "contact, copious reasons, follow"... a couple other options come to mind; your "proof" is being missed or overlooked or interpreted as not correct by the other user.
sometimes if you also add the i.d.s for the two "often confused" profiles here, other users or volunteer mods can view the same and potentially offer additional insight.
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For "how do I switch these two's positions", you can use the relationship-editing button (the little pencil-and-box icon) that's found to the right of peoples' or couples' names in the Family Members section of a profile's Details page. Here are a couple of Help Center articles on the topic of correcting relationships:
https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/a-person-in-family-tree-has-the-wrong-spouse
When there are two similar people in the records, it's hard to keep other researchers from re-conflating them in FamilySearch's collaborative Family Tree. One thing you can do is to firmly place both men in their correct families, attaching every source that's available (with transcriptions or thorough descriptions in case someone can't or won't look at the images), and adding research notes both on the Collaborate tab (where such notes technically belong but where many people never look) and in the reason boxes attached to key conclusions. Some people also advocate for writing messages to researchers in the Life Sketch, but I have that section closed by default and don't see the point of misusing it this way.
As Graham wrote, if it's one particular user who is consistently reversing your corrections, try writing to him using FamilySearch's internal messaging system. (Find the user's name on one of his changes, click it, and choose "Message".) Politely point out the existence of the two similar people and the evidence for them correctly being the other way around. Hopefully, the other user will read his messages before embarking on his next editing spree, and if he agrees with your evidence, the "uncorrections" will stop.
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After quite a bit of work, I managed to put the correct person with his wife. Just have to hope no changes are made haha
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Just have to hope no changes are made haha
If not, please return here and share the profile IDs so we can take a look. Often the problem like this that persists is due to cross-linked sources, conflation in profiles of 1st degree relatives, and similar gnarly tangles.
We can help with that!
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Yes contact the other person. If they respond and tell you to back off and you have documentational proof and they do not then you may as a last resort use the abuse path. We do not want others making wrong changes n a patrons charts.
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