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How reliable is information entered by the "@FamilySearch" user, when no sources are linked?

JenWhitingHeilemann
JenWhitingHeilemann ✭
May 13, 2023 edited July 11, 2024 in Family Tree

As the title says...

I've encountered people profiles with relationships, birth/death dates & locations, that apparently have only been touched by the "FamilySearch" user. I have to assume this is some kind of automated system. There is rarely if ever any sources attached to these data.

How much can it be trusted as reliable? I don't want to base edits to the tree on something that doesn't have any source data backing it up.

Tagged:
  • Sources
  • Added by FamilySearch
0

Best Answers

  • Julia Szent-Györgyi
    Julia Szent-Györgyi ✭✭✭✭✭
    May 13, 2023 Answer ✓

    It's almost always legacy data, meaning it was entered in a previous system -- by users. Thus, like most things on FS, there cannot be any sort of globally-applicable evaluation of these profiles.

    A lot of them are connected to one of the old extraction projects, such as the IGI, and there have been various automated processes that attached indexes to the profiles derived from them, but there are also many ultimately-index-based profiles to which the index entry has not yet been attached.

    2
  • Paul W
    Paul W ✭✭✭✭✭
    May 13, 2023 Answer ✓

    Even if there are sources attached, you would still have to verify the identify of the individuals concerned. I wouldn't trust anything I hadn't checked out myself - by finding evidence from records on the FamilySearch website or elsewhere.

    2
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