Sources

Drew

FamilySearch is adding information to Person pages without providing sources. It would seem that if FamilySearch can provide data on a person that there must have been a source. Since it is recommended that we all provide a source for any data that we provide, that the FamilySearch staff should be held to the same standards.

Gail Swihart Watson

I assume an authoritative person will pipe in and expand on this, but you will only see that happening in 2012 (like your image) when the present database was migrated from some other platform. That means the information was legacy information in the previous platform.

Áine Ní Donnghaile

And contributor names did not migrate from the previous platform. IOW, those contributions were not made by FamilySearch but by individuals.

Gordon Collett

I'm certainty not an authoritative person but I'll pipe in anyway.

Family Tree was created from every submission to FamilySearch since 1894 and included the Temple Index Bureau file cards, the International Genealogical Index datafile, the Ancestral File, and the Pedigree Resource File and more. Each previous system had its own data structure. Most of them did not include sources. All this was combined and imported into Family Tree in the spring of 2012. Anything dated early 2012 with contributor "FamilySearch" was part of this initial creation of Family Tree.

Looking at the record you point out, you can see on the Ordinance tab that this record was first submitted to FamilySearch in November 1996. Sixteen years before Family Tree opened. This was most likely a patron submission that upon completion of ordinances in 1996 was entered into the IGI. It could be an extraction record but most of those do have a source stating the record was created from a specific extraction record. Patron temple submission standards in 1996 did not include a provision to include sources.

Regarding contributor names in that 2012 import, Ron Tanner, project manager for Family Tree, stated in a presentation a few years ago that initially they did include contributor name but immediately got loud complaints from people along the lines of "I have never, ever been in this FamilyTree thing! I never gave permission to have my name displayed!! What is my name doing there!!??" so they took all the names out. The programming did not allow that spot to be blank so they put in "FamilySearch." By having a FamilySearch account and working in FamilyTree we have given permission for our user names to be displayed there.