Finding same given and birth surnames

cacoethes scribendi

When I am searching records for an ancestor, say William Hearns of Ontario Canada and I find vital record data for another William Hearns, who is not a relative, may I add the vital record data or spouse & children to the non relative William Hearns, even though I won't do the proxy temple ordinances?

Julia Szent-Györgyi

Contributions to the communal Family Tree are not limited by relationship. They are also completely unrelated to LDS rites, given that a majority of users are, like me, non-LDS.

dontiknowyou

Seconding that you are entitled and encouraged to contribute to any profile in Family Tree.

This is especially important to do whenever conflation is an issue, in which case you may want to leave a Note on each profile, using the new Alert flag on the note to set a banner on the profile details page. See for example:

https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/collaborate/GJBN-MWD

Gordon Collett

One of the great advantages of all of us working together in this common family tree is that we can help each other out. Since you found that vital record for that other William Hearns, if you attach it to his record that means that his descendants will not have to spend hours looking for it. Just be sure you are adding correct information.

Just think of the math. In Ancestry, my great-great-grandfather is currently found in 917 public trees. If a new record collection has been released somewhere that has a record for him in it and it takes anyone 2 hours to find and attach that record, if I find that record and attach it in Family Tree, it takes 2 hours to take care of it and no one else has to do anything about it other than enjoy seeing a new source. Working in Ancestry, every owner of every tree would have to use 2 hours to find the record and attach it. That is 1,834 hours of wasted research time.

Another great advantage of working together can be seen by looking at my MyHeritage account. I have part of a family tree in My Heritage. Currently I have 60,462 hints. I am not going to waste my time checking and attaching all those hints because here in Family Tree the same records appear and I have dozens of relatives who have attached hundreds of Family Tree hints and are all doing a great job.

The third thing to keep in mind, is that if your William Hearns and that other William Hearns are fully and completely documented with all vital information possible on their records, the chance that someone will mistakenly merge them is far less. The more information you can put on people that look like your relative but are not in order to prove they are not your relative, the more stable all of their profiles will be.