Is there a way to "lock" an entry to prevent others from making incorrect...er...corrections?
I have done diligent research into my family and have located original birth/death/marriage/pedigree information, mostly by gathering information from European archives and other sources. I didn't rely on data bases or indexes or volunteer translations. It was tedious but I am very certain my information is correct. I have several different original language, original source documents to back everything up. However, anyone seems to be able to make changes and many of the changes are not correct. Since every entry into Family Search must be made one at a time, and there is no way to do a mass download from Ancestry, my inclination is just to let FS go. At least on Ancestry I can prevent others, well meaning or otherwise, from messing up the hard work I have done. Just today I had to fix more than two dozen entries, almost all of them "corrections" of my accurate entries.
Not to just pick on you, I have similar issues with Find-a-Grave, where volunteers who don't know my family at all make editorial comments that are frankly false.
Answers
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The FamilySearch Family Tree (FSFT) is fully open-edit and collaborative. That means anyone can make a change/correction/connection.
In other words, you cannot lock a profile.
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As I've said before:
One disadvantage of a collaborative tree like FS's is that anybody can edit anything.
However:
A great advantage of a collaborative tree like FS's is that anybody can edit anything.
That "anybody" includes you. On Ancestry, the system actively and constantly suggests and encourages the propagation of errors, and there is absolutely nothing that any individual user can do to stop any of it, besides declining to take the system up on its constant offers of dreck. In contrast, on FamilySearch, if someone has made an error, you can fix it. And, unlike on the other collaborative-tree sites, you don't need to ask for or wait for anybody's permission to do so.
But to each his own: not everyone can deal with the collaborative environment. Some people are blessed with particularly clueless but enthusiastic distant cousins who constantly muck things up. (Or worse, other people's particularly clueless but enthusiastic distant cousins who try to hijack their relatives.) If you find yourself in this camp, then by all means, switch to an individual-trees site like Ancestry, or just use offline software. (You can do a periodic "cloud backup" by uploading a GEDCOM to FS's Genealogies section.) You can -- and actually, probably should -- do both: work in FS (where the sources are), back it up offline or on an individual-trees site. Yes, it's extra work, but can be worth it, for example if you happen to "bump into" another user with your attention to detail who's already done a branch that you were just starting on.
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@N Christensen - my compliments to your diligent work and dedication. As indicated above, there is not a way to lock a profile from changes. I have experience much of what you talk about. The best defense I have found is to make sure each person's profile is as complete as possible with sources attached and tagged. You mention the many original source documents you have. I hope you have taken the time to attach them to the appropriate people and tagged them to the sourced event. While these steps can't guarantee to eliminate erroneous entries, I have found bad entries are greatly reduced. Thanks for your excellent work.
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FamilySearch, FamilyTree is a “one world tree,” or a “unified database” that aims to contain one entry for each person recorded in genealogical records, therefore all FamilySearch users are able to add persons, link them to existing persons or merge duplicates. Family Tree is different from other similar genealogy sites in that it is a single, public tree linked together in families, rather than a site that only allows users to create and manage their own private trees. This distinction means that everyone works together on the same data, allowing for the potential to connect every member of the human family.
Family Tree compares records and sources in order to help you resolve mistakes or duplication in records. It also provides messaging and collaboration tools, as well as free expert phone support, to help you resolve errors. Family Tree draws from FamilySearch's enormous database to provide record hints. This makes it easier to link you and your ancestors to earlier generations.
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My Tree with Family Search has been altered & deviates to different family members, who are not my ancestors, although the same family name. Is there anyway of correcting this? Thanks
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@Valerie_Small The short answer is yes. See Julia's comment above. Anything that has been changed can be restored.
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@Valerie_Small, going into a bit more detail: start with getting rid of the entire idea of "my tree" when it comes to FamilySearch. You don't have one of those here. Nobody does.
Because of the collaborative structure, FamilySearch's Family Tree tracks all changes and allows users to restore previous conclusions, regardless of who changed them. This history and the means of restoring conclusions are in each profile's Change Log, which you get to by clicking "Show All" at the bottom of the Latest Changes box, in the right-hand column of the profile's Details page.
If another user mistook your relatives for his and "hijacked" their profiles, introducing incorrect (for you) relationships and other conclusions, you basically have two choices: undo the changes and restore your family, hoping that the other user doesn't then come along and re-do what he believes to be correct; or you can abandon those profiles to their (ignominous) fate and create new, correct ones for your family.
If the "hijacked" profiles were mostly empty, and there are only a few of them, then the second option is likely to be easier. It's what I decided on, the time someone decided to move one of my ancestors to a different crown land and assign him a different religion and a dozen extra children. It was easier to just remove the now-incorrect parent from my ancestor, and then enter a new profile with the name and approximate date that was all I had (and still have) on my relative. (There was also one source that needed to be moved.)
If, on the other hand, the changes removed fleshed-out profiles with lots of dates and places and sources and relationships, then restoring the previous data is the better choice. This way, you shouldn't need to re-type anything. The exact procedure depends on what changes were made: did the other user simply detach the correct relationships and attach the incorrect ones, or did he edit the names and dates and places on the profiles to match his ideas? Explore the relevant Change Logs to figure that out.
In using the log, I find it helpful to keep an overarching principle in mind: it doesn't allow you to "undo". Instead, you need to find where the correct data was entered and restore it. If the correct data is what was originally entered on the profile, then the restore link will be all the way at the bottom (beginning) of the log.
If the incorrect changes involved any merges, then undoing that is often extra-special funtimes; it may help to keep reassuring yourself that it can be done. Nothing is permanently deleted from the Tree.
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@Valerie_Small @Julia Szent-Györgyi Valerie, Julia gave some good advice about hijacked profiles. When this happens is usually means there is one profile trying to be two or more people. It is like musical chairs and the only solution is to get another profile. Julia mentioned two options, create a new profile for your person or edit the existing profile to restore your data and hope someone doesn't come along and change it back. Personally, I prefer to keep my original profile but then going another step further by creating a profile for the other person. This greatly reduces the chance of your profile being hijacked again. As I said, when one profile is trying to be more than one person, the only solution is to get a profile for each person being represented. Before doing any of this, I usually go to the earliest dates in the change log to see the origins of the profile. Depending on what you find, it may help the decision of how to proceed.
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Speaking of hijacking, this thread was started by N Christensen on not quite the same topic. That's why I gave a brief reply to Valerie.
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Mod note: This discussion has been moved from General Questions to the Family Tree category.
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