Can't something be done to prevent people from making changes without giving a source?
I am so frustrated that the accuracy of my pedigree has been violated because people change information without giving a source. One of my ancestors, Joseph Lee b. 1762 in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, and his wife Eleanor Davisson was corrupted by a very distant cousin. She removed all of their children even when the Family Bible was listed in his Penision application. And since I made the correction, another distant cousin changed the birthplace from New Jersey to Virginia. Please do what is necessary to stop people from putting in the wrong information without showing a source.
I am also frustrated that hundreds and hundreds of temple ordinances have been erased from Family Search. Joseph Lee and Eleanor Davisson's temple work was done in the 1950s. They appeared in the Finished Temple Record Books that lined the walls of the Family History Library.
I also have temple record cards that confirm temple work was done and now Family Search shows that the work is not done. I have been doing this work for over 60 years. I am 88 years old, and I am truly frustrated.
I have just listened to Roots Tech and what is new. I personally believe, more attention needs to be made concerning the accuracy of the records {and keeping them accurate] then trying to expand programs that are suppose to connect cousins etc.
I was always taught that we are suppose to offer up an accurate Book of Remembrance to the Savior when all is said and done.
Answers
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I totally agree with you on this.
My mother and fathers wedding place was changed from the recorded place to a town 20 miles away.
That is just one example.
I would like to delete all my corrupted data and somehow stop it from being amended.
My tree is simply that. I created it through robust research and expense.
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I totally agree with the previous comments. I understand the focus for one family tree, and yet incorrect changes without any sourcing is greatly accelerating as patrons “new” to genealogy are too busy (or don’t know the value of) sourcing their changes. Documenting is essential to keeping the person’s identity pure. I have recently experienced people adding an additional surname to generations of my family. When I contact the persons making a change, there is either: 1) never a response; or 2) a simple links to another major genealogical online program that, when viewed, has no sources. This is exasperating.
I am the only member of my extended family that is involved in genealogy. I also, have been searching for family for over 60 years. The privilege and responsibility is mine. This effort is not a hobby. It is a sacred, privileged experience. Now retired, I spend more than 50 hours weekly in this work.
This is a great work, and it’s sad to know that the efforts of many are being destroyed because of inaccurate information.
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There have been many ideas put forward on how to reduce / address the problems in using the open-edit Family Tree. To be honest, I have not found any that would not create too many difficulties to be worthwhile implementing.
Two points I usually make on this issue (which has an adverse affect on my work, too) are:
Firstly, close family members often do get their facts wrong, so even unrelated persons who have unearthed the true facts should continue to be allowed to make corrections to these profiles.
Secondly, sources often offer no evidence / proof of an individual's identity, as too regularly I find other users have attached those sources to the wrong profile. It is often very difficult to evaluate to which "William Brown" a source relates - often there are cousins of the same name who lived very close by, married women with the same first name and even had children with similar names. So, the adding of sources does not always prove to be of any help whatsoever as evidence of identity.
Sadly, as with other issues, there is no feedback from Family Tree managers regarding any future intention to adopt changes that might be of help in at least going some way in addressing this problem. We can only assume the way Family Tree works is not going to be changed any time soon.
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The real problem - which is being danced around in so many posts - is that people are not good at collaborating. They are also not typically good at researching or evaluating evidence, either. Most people view their family history as a black and white "I'm right and you're wrong". Someone made a post similar to yours except gave the PID and information and it turned out the "wrong date" someone else had posted for a birth was better sourced than the "correct date" the poster emphatically wanted. I had to point out to the poster that the date he though correct was only found in sources reported by the widowed wife. The "incorrect" birth date was only found in sources where the man self reported while he was still alive. I've had another type discussion when someone accused me of usurping her grandmother as my own ancestor. She had not looked at my sources at all. She only had her own sources and her knowledge of her grandmother. It turned out if she had been more careful in her research she would have discovered there were 2 women of the same name living in the same town at the same time. Her lineage was correct and so was mine. Because I didn't shove it in her face, we actually began collaborating on our shared surname to discover that further back we were indeed related.
So the real problem, in my mind, isn't how to stop people from editing our ancestors, it is how can we better work together to find the truth.
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I agree with the comments made in all the previous posts.
I would like to say contributors that make unsourced modifications are acting in good faith, just haven’t received adequate genealogical training, and are making unintentional innocent mistakes, but unfortunately I have found that is often not true. What I have discovered is many:
1)Are combative when informed the modifications they made are incorrect;
2) Don’t even remember the ancestor in question and the changes they made;
3) Just have an “Oh, well” attitude;
4) Even after being informed the modifications they made are erroneous and have been corrected, they will return to the tree and delete the correct information, replacing it with the same, wrong data (an “I’ll show you” mentality);
5) Fail to understand the ramifications their unsourced changes have on:
a. Their credibility
b. The sanctity of the overall data in the respective tree
c. The rabbit hole they might be creating for inexperienced family historians
6) Either have no interest in collaborating or don’t comprehend the concept of collaboration;
7) Just do not care.
Family Search could incorporate a training program for new contributors that addresses basic genealogy research. They should make it a mandatory requirement that new contributors complete the course before they can contribute data into the Family Tree data base.
I have lost faith in credibility of data found in Family Tree and no longer contribute to the relative family tree that includes my ancestors. After all, it isn’t my family tree.
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I totally agree with the above comments, but I would like someone from Family Search to address the above problems and post it on this board. Why are the ordinances being repeated for the same person multiple times? What has happened to all the ordinance dates from years passed and then are redone? Why can patrons put in information without proper sources?
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Just a couple of comments about the ordinances aspect. Family Tree is accomplishing one of the goals President Hinckley stated for it which was to reduce duplicate ordinance work. My great-great grandfather had his ordinances done about fifty times through the years. These could be seen in the IGI. In Family Tree now that all his several hundred duplicates have been merged, only his original ordinances show, all of which he completed personally while he was alive.
What has happened to all the ordinance dates from years passed? They are all in Family Tree on duplicates that have not been found and merged in yet. Unfortunately some of them are well hidden because of incorrect merges. But even these the FamilySearch people working in the Temple section of FamilySearch Help here in community are very good at finding and moving to the correct people if you have names, ordinance dates, and temples they can look up. The official ordinance records are kept in a separate database, not here in Family Tree.
Why can patrons put in information without sources? Probably because it is better to allow information to be added without a source than for information to be added with useless sources in which someone fills out a required form with "Because this is correct" in every field.
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Why, Oh why can I not correct an entry on my tree that I know is blatantly wrong? Fortunately I have another tree with all the correct info on it and am not willing to share it on this site when it may be misused.
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I think we should consider using only the ID's of each profile we want to work on. This is the most important number of the person in FamilySearch. If I want to start my family tree, I will type in my name, surname, and date of birth. The moment I add and save it, I will get an ID number from FS (FamilySearch). If one of my distant family wants to add my name to their tree, they will type in my name, surname, and birth date (they probably wouldn't know that I am already in the system) . A drop box will immediately come up, with all my info and the system will prompt them to use my ID info, because I am already in the system. If they ignore the pop up, they will still be able to add me, but now I will have two ID numbers, and immediately there will be a blue note next to your name, stating that there has been a possible duplicate. Then the fun starts where you have to do merging and more and more and even then it is a risk, because there might be family members with the same names. It gets so much that you just give up and leave everything as it is, in shambles.
As far as I understand, FS has an 'open book' system and doesn't block a name entirely, they just produce another ID number if there is an addition of the same person . They should consider to do a blocking on each name and make it nearly impossible for other family members to add duplicates or change ones members on one's tree without the consent of FamilySearch who can prompt them to use the ID number given in the first place.
Don't get me wrong, FamilySearch is for me the best to do my family tree. I've been working on FS for many years, doing indexing, reviewing and added to my family tree. I find it the easiest of all the other websites.
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@Hester Korff Wolmarans With living people, the records in the system will never pop up. Everyone who wants a record of you attached to the portion of the tree you see MUST create a new record for you. I have argued in the past that this is a very bad business model as it intentionally propagates duplicate records. Upon your death everyone with a person page for you must mark you deceased and then begin the small or large task of merging all your records as they become deceased. And unless you are LDS, you should plan to give your login and password to someone prior to your death or your account and all your work on persons marked living will be invisible forever.
Regarding blocking, all records of persons marked living are blocked from view by everyone except the person who created the record.
The system you describe is ONLY for deceased people, and I have seen it not work consistently. Multiple times I have seen FS not recognize a potential duplicate exists until after I created a new person with ID, causing me to immediately have to merge.
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Hi Gail, thank you for your feedback. All that you have said is so true, and I stand by the fact that there should be only one ID number from F Search, for each person in a family tree, dead or alive. Have you seen how many blue 'Research Help' stickers are next to a person's name and details if there are more than one person with the same name, or any other reason for that matter? Some of my family members have about 32 such stickers and some doesn't even know what it means.
I usually go to my tree and every blue sticker that I see, I open and do corrections. I like to keep everything up to date and I have the sources to state the facts. If I don't have the source, I usually email the person who did the change to my tree and ask if she or he can provide proof of why they have made changes. Most of the times people doesn't bother to reply.
The fact that everyone of the distant family can do changes and/or corrections (when I know that I was correct and can proof it), drives me up the wall. My family tree was once dated back to the 1500s, when someone had put only one change to it, and wiped my entire lineage out, just like that. It took me months to rectify the problem, meanwhile all the other blue stickers are waiting to be corrected and it gets so much now, that I just give up doing updates. All because there are no blocking to a person's ID number.
Regards
Hester
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@Hester Korff Wolmarans I also believe there should be one ID for everyone.
I have had mixed experience with changes to the world tree. Most people meet unknown relatives through DNA, but a third cousin and I have become acquainted with 4th and 5th cousins in Europe through the collaborative tree in FamilySearch. Although language is a barrier, it has been fascinating and eye opening to correspond with them in a private FB messenger room that one of them created. It is unreal to think that decisions made 150 years ago made the difference between me being born and not being born.
I have had very few bad experiences - and I almost hate to type that as it might invite someone with a destructive nature to accept a "challenge". BUT, I also keep a tree in Ancestry. Several, in fact as I am working on family history for in-laws and adopted relatives as well as cousins and myself.
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