Help! FICTIONAL Entries On My Tree?!
Hello! I have been working on my tree for a while now, as my mother, myself and some of my siblings have been very interested in family history. While I do agree with the majority of it, there is a LARGE chunk related to the Wimmers (my grandmother's family) that is completely fictional.
There are OVER FIFTY-SEVEN RECORDS,BEGINNING WITH G45F-7R7, ENDING WITH GLQZ-KFD and including ALL of that supposed "family" are 100% FICTIONAL. They are CHARACTERS in the fake "Shawnee Heritage" books and NEED TO BE REMOVED.
This is a fictional name created in the fraudulent "Shawnee Heritage" series.
The Native American Project states:
"The Shawnee Heritage Books by Don Greene and Noel Swartz are mostly fiction stirred with glue stick and flung at random ancestry trees. What sticks makes the book. Don Greene has been called out by several Native groups including the author of the blog Ancestor Stealing. Greene has a whole line of Shawnee/Cherokee/Powhatan that are a total fabrication...Don Greene's books are completely unsourced and mostly mythical, published by a man who has named himself chief of his own fake tribe. If anything in them is accurate it's by accident or coincidence. They are assemblages of postings from Internet mailing lists and family trees. I found several of my 100% white ancestors listed as Native American from multiple tribes. If you speak to anyone in authority from either the Shawnee or Cherokee Nation they will tell you the same thing."
The Native American Project also states regarding multiple fictional Chalakahatha/Shawnee/Powhatan alleged ancestors:
"This person is from tribal legend and lore that was not written down until the 20th century. There is no evidence that this person ever existed."
Reputable user-supplied amateur genealogy websites stop the proliferation of the Chalakahatha/Shawnee/Powhatan fictions. For example, Geni has isolated them when this statement:
"This tree [Princess Pride Chalakahatha Pride Cornstalk (Shawnee)] has been isolated from other trees on Geni: Tree is fictional. Geni does not allow isolated trees to be merged into the World Family Tree, or other trees." Included on the isolations were all parents, siblings, spouses, and children; each is labeled "Fictional, Shawnee Heritage."
Likewise, Wikitree states regarding the alleged original ancestors of this fictional lineage, Morning Flower Powhatan and Dashing Stream Chalakatha Shawnee:
"Because claims about this profile impact the quality of documented Native Americans, this profile is protected, tracked and co-managed...There is no evidence, other than 20th-century-created Internet legends."
Tribal historians share the views of Bill Deyo (Tribal Historian of the Patawomeck Indians of Virginia - State Recognized Tribe) as stated August 4, 2016:
"I am afraid that there is a lot of fabrication of names in the Indian ancestry. There is no evidence that Powhatan had a grandfather named Dashing Stream. Nothing is known about Powhatan's bloodline except that the great Nemattanon/Don Luis de Velasco was probably his maternal uncle. Some records call him Powhatan's father, but that was the Indian Uncle/Father relationship, as Nemattanon was not old enough to have been Powhatan's father. You have to be VERY careful if you are using the Shawnee Heritage books. They are very largely fabricated with a multitude of errors."
Don Greene wrote and self-published the fictional "Shawnee Heritage" series with hundreds of fictional ancestors. Greene has been denounced
Best Answers
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You may wish to read this Help Article regarding reporting problems in the FSFT. There is also a link in that article to contact FamilySearch Support.
Just a gentle reminder that there is no your tree or my tree in the FSFT. It is all one collaborative tree.
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I won't suggest you have wasted your time in reporting this, as it is good that you have made others aware of this issue. However, I'm afraid that it is extremely doubtful that FamilySearch will take any action as it would usually only remove profiles in line with any violation of the code of conduct.
There are many branches on Family Tree that contain fictional / highly dubious entries, but its open-edit model allows any individual user to make their own edits - including their removing individuals from a branch if there is evidence they are fictional characters, or otherwise form no part of that family.
As an example, there is a branch on Family Tree that extends from Jesus of Nazareth**, through Mary Magdalene, to (I believe) the modern day. Some users find might find this to be completely without evidence, even preposterous, or be highly offended by it, whereas other are quite happy to accept this content as being factual. Either way, similar profiles have been part of Family Tree for many years, as FamilySearch administrators stick to their hands-off approach, leaving it to their patrons to make any edits they might feel appropriate.
In summary, you are not alone in experiencing such an issue, but it is left in your hands to make any necessary changes to the structure of this branch - subject to the provision of firm evidence / added reason statements for any action you may wish to take.
** As an example, see LDLR-236 and view the Collaboration section of this profile, as well as the pedigree.
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@Yidhra Family Tree is our tree so we can all fix almost anything. You can take care of these fictional profiles on your own. I would suggested pasting your excellent explanation of the problem as an alert note on all of the fictional profiles then deleting all family relationships on each of those profiles to any other profile to make them hard to find. You should also send your explanation to all contributors to those profiles. You may have to do this every six months but with time and repetition one would hope that you will be able to keep those profiles from being re-added or reconnected to the main Family Tree. Any profiles that are floating as isolated profiles in the database can just sit there without doing much harm.
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Answers
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@Yidhra Mod note: Your post was edited to remove a name that is not part of your username.
Please see the Community Code of Conduct for more details.0 -
Thank you, guys! I didn't know it was that easy to fix things like that~! :) I do completely get accepting or wanting legendary, religious, or family lore to stay on trees (Haha, many European royal families claimed decendency from King Uther Pendragon and Merlin, after all!) Hopefully if anyone reads this thread and notices suspect information that looks like it might be from these "Shawnee Heritage" books, they'll know to at least second-guess what they're reading. I did take @Gordon Collett's suggestions on how to help try to make these profiles harder to find~
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