Lock up complete families
If a family is done and complete, is there a way we could "lock it up" so others don't come along and mess up the family? I know it's a world wide Tree, but if a family is done, let's protect it! Sources could still be added, but no merges, no changes....unless they asked permission from Family Search with sources.....
Answers
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Who should decide when a family is "done and complete"? Any user?
The same users who create marriages for people before they were born? The same users who add children born before their parents? The same users who create children born decades, even centuries, after their parents died? The same users who merge every "John Smith" in an area? The same users who decide that "Fred Bloggs" in England must be the same person as "Dave Jones" in America, and merge them, because they both married a woman called Jane?
Do you really want to give these users, and there are lots of them, the power to decide what you can and cannot correct?
Family Search will never have enough staff to arbitrate the disputes.
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I don't know if by your expression "if a family is done and complete" you are referring to ordinances, as certainly "done and complete" is not a term recognised in genealogy.
Even if you are talking about all names in a family having been taken to the Temple, what do you mean by "family"? Are you referring to your "immediate" family, or including individuals right through to distant cousins? Also, how many generations are you referring to?
We are constantly uncovering new facts about our family branches - even those born quite recently - so it would be totally wrong to lock records on the basis of your being convinced you have found all there is to know about them, so there will be no need to add anything further.
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It is not good to consider any family tree as "done and complete". First, even the assumption of birth and death dates can be uprooted if new information comes up. I have a cousin of a grandfather who has an incorrect birth date in his death cert, tombstone, all obits, in his record in FS and at the time, all trees in Ancestry. His birth cert was recently released and - GUESS WHAT -- he was born in a different month, same year. Every record is wrong. He was also a twin and his sister died at age 3 months who is on NO ONE's tree.
Second, new sources beyond vital records are coming to light all the time. Classified documents from WW II are rapidly filling in Fold3 collections and contain detailed information about some deaths. Orphans pensions from the Civil War are being digitized and new astounding information is there about an ancestor of mine. In no other record did I find any information about his wife. It turns out she died in childbirth 2 weeks after his death in 1863. No one had it correct. More and more colonial and early American records are being digitized all the time with new information coming to light.
I think it safe to say family history is never done nor complete.
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I'm thinking I'm sorry I even brought this up....maybe lock was the wrong word. I constantly untangle entangled families that have been merged into messes.....just disregard my suggestion. All the best!
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No offence intended. It is just that many users constantly have the same problem with the profiles of our relatives being messed-up or merged with an individual of similar, but definitely different, identity.
It's just the downside of taking part in an open-edit project like Family Tree. The advantages lie in being able to link to existing branches of your relatives that another user (perhaps a distant cousin) has already added to the tree - thus saving you a lot of time and effort in otherwise duplicating a lot of research of those relatives / ancestors and having to create profiles yourself.
Sadly, even close relatives make terrible mistakes in adding individuals to their branches that are not related to them at all. Similarly, they assume they know all their relatives, when there are some who they didn't manage to find until many years after their research was thought to be complete. I assure you this has happened to me!
Many of us can understand your frustration at having incorrect work carried out on your family members and look for ways FamilySearch could help improve the situation. Until such a time, I believe the benefits still far outweigh the disadvantages of the current system, so carry on using Family Tree - whilst keeping my work backed-up in my personal software packages.
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Paul W, yes, I backup everything on to a private program. But honestly, I rarely use the community board and when I do, I realize I just shouldn’t. haha If I could delete my initial comment, I would, rather then receive all that. I've been doing and teaching family history for over 30 years....I get it. I get the ins and outs....the pros and cons....Thanks for being kind. Gave a great day!
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