What to do when a patron is completely changing names, dates etc. on profiles?
For example-(fake names) changing a name from Robert Smith to Walter Black.
Earlier this week I kept finding profiles where a certain patron had completely changed the names, dates, and locations of people. All of the sources stayed the same. I spent several hours going back and making corrections (restoring as much as I could) but see that the person has gone back and has changed some of the information again. I don't even know how many profiles they did this to-but I worked on quite a few.
Here is an example I was able to pull up:
Sir William Bardolph 4th Baron Bardolf L1SG-35D
Looking at the change history you can see that on August 19th a patron started making changes-names, dates, places, photos, etc. The profile's name was changed to Edmund Mortimer then I corrected it. It was then changed to Roger Mortimer and then to Edmund Mortimer before I corrected it again back to the correct name of William Bardolph.
I have a feeling that so many profiles have been corrupted by what this user is doing.
I have not reported this is abuse because in the past when I did so for a similar situation I was told it was not abuse.
Here are a few other examples:
Robert d'Aguillon LH7F-PQ9 was changed to Piers de Geneville
William de Ferrers L8PJ-FJ6 was changed to Hugh XII Of Lusignan
Answers
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Another example:
Margery Bardolf GXYB-C2Q was changed to Queen Isabella of England. All of her children were deleted, dates were changed, parents changed, husband changed... the whole family is a mess...
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Thomas de Poynings G649-FNT changed to King Henry III of England
Ela Aguillon GZBX-8RH changed to Queen Eleanor of Provence
I am going to stop trying to do corrections. I think FS will have to run a report or something and have someone change everything back that was changed by this individual.
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That needs to be reported. Breaks the agreed code when we sign up for familysearch. It has a possible malicious look to it
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@LFarrier Use the Report Abuse button, in the Tools box, on the profile(s) affected.
Be prepared to give specific examples and ask that the problem be escalated, if the first answer is the usual form letter. It can take considerable time, but I've had some success.
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Thank you for the responses-I have reported abuse on the profiles.
Hopefully FS can go back and change everything back to what is was before the user changed everything.
I agree that it does look malicious.
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In my experience, FS will delete the mess but may not put everything back the way it was.
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The last time a very similar problem affected me it took at least a couple of days to get things back to how they were. I contacted the person who had made the changes, but there was little in the way of apology when she responded, even being so bold as to boast she had years of experience in working with Family Tree!
By all means (as suggested) report this as abuse, but - as I have written elsewhere today - FamilySearch seems to have very limited resources available to deal with matters like this, taking a very much "hands off" approach by expecting users to resolve such matters among themselves.
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@Paul W , @Áine Ní Donnghaile , @Hayter David -
Thank you all for responding. I went ahead and reported the examples that I gave above as abuse and (as before) received the standard response from FS:
FamilySearch Family Tree is a collaborative, universal pedigree best worked on with others. Key ingredients of that collaboration are the ability to make changes, updates, and additions, as well as conversing with other users.
When you spend a lot of time and effort thoroughly researching individuals and adding source information, the best place to keep that information in an unchanged state is in a family tree management application, thus maintaining the integrity of your research.
The FamilySearch Solutions Gallery contains a list of family tree management applications at the site:
https://partners.familysearch.org/solutionsgallery/s/list?category=family_tree_management
Most family tree management applications on the FamilySearch Solutions Gallery site interact with and support FamilySearch Family Tree, so you can easily upload your work to FamilySearch Family Tree or download from Family Tree to your private tree.
Another option is to upload your family information to Pedigree Resource File (PRF). The PRF is a collection of user-submitted genealogies that users uploaded to FamilySearch as GEDCOM files. You can both search this information and contribute to it. You cannot edit PRF files. You can delete a file you submitted. Click on the following link for instructions on how to upload a GEDCOM file: https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/what-is-the-pedigree-resource-file
We wish you the best in your genealogical endeavors.
Sincerely,
FamilySearch Data Administration
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Not too surprised you received this standard response. The specific item was probably given little more than a cursory glance by the individual who sent this reply. Such a shame there seems no means whereby administrators distinguish genuine errors (incorrect merges, etc.) with what can amount to the hijacking of a complete branch of a family, as in the example you have reported.
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I suspect that first reply is totally automated. As I said last week
Be prepared to give specific examples and ask that the problem be escalated, if the first answer is the usual form letter. It can take considerable time, but I've had some success.
Respond and ask for escalation. Patience and persistence will be key. It can take several rounds of "Let me speak to the manager."
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I used to answer queries like this as I was one of the moderators etc a few years ago. There were then no automatic responses, each was taken on its own merit. I would have taken these on on in a heartbeat, but having reviewed "Latest Changes", there's a lot going on in the background, and it seems many different people have been adding to this/him. - is it possible that G649-FNT Thomas De Poynings actually was the King?? I don't know- my knowledge of history isn't great.
It is obvious that the "one world family tree" has issues in that people can change what is known to be correct to that which is incorrect. Unravelling some of these changes can take hours of deciphering. It takes a bit of skill and knowledge of the systems that would have me reaching for the headache tablets. Given the dates as in this case it would be a long slow process for me.
I can fully understand your frustrations - I had a family from Sussex, England that someone merged with a family with SOME commonality of names but from the USA. A quick referral to the various applicable census records would have shown this merge to be wrong. ie first child born in England, second in the USA, third in England, forth in the USA etc. That took an afternoon to sort out and that was fairly simple.
It is worth remembering though that anyone can sign up to FamilySearch. So you can have a highly experienced researcher working on the same tree as a complete novice, or someone with limited abilities. You can see the problems there.
In this instance I would "bite the bullet" for a little while. Undo the incorrect additions , and put an explanation under "collaboration". If it changes again - redo . All changes are recorded. Tedious but important.
Getting the tree right is imperative. Errors weaken the tree and the integrity of the same.
I know this isn't quite what you want to hear but having seen both sides of the procedure, this is the way to go. Redo those changes.
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Putting my (former) software developer hat on ... with so many changes, I wonder if they aren't being made by a buggy piece of desktop software synching up with the wrong online records and "correcting" them? So instead of linking Robert Smith in the offline tree to Robert Smith in the online tree, it's linking Walter Black in the offline tree to Robert Smith in the online tree, and then updating the online tree to match?
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We're not talking about anything offline in this thread, @TheoDarwin. It's all right here, in plain sight, on the FSFT. In my case, the problem was caused by a malicious contributor. He has since been banned, although he periodically comes back again to create havoc.
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