Please restore visibility of contributor names on vital record changes
I’ve noticed that FamilySearch is now hiding the identity of contributors who make changes to vital information such as name, birth, and death details. Instead of showing the username of the person who made the edit, the system often displays “FamilySearch” or nothing at all.
I want to express why this change is harmful to the collaborative nature of the shared Family Tree.
1. Transparency is essential for quality control
Over time, many of us become familiar with the users who frequently work on our family lines. We learn who is careful, who sources well, and who understands the family. When I see a change made by someone I know to be reliable, I don’t worry. When I see a change made by someone new, I know to double‑check it.
Masking contributor names removes this essential context.
2. Collaboration becomes impossible without knowing who made the change
If I can’t see who made an edit:
- I can’t contact them to discuss the reasoning
- I can’t ask for clarification
- I can’t work together to resolve conflicting sources
- I can’t build long‑term collaborative relationships
This defeats the purpose of a shared tree.
3. It even hides my own edits from me
In some cases, the system hides the contributor name even when I was the one who made the change. That makes it impossible to track my own work or confirm whether I already corrected something.
4. Experienced contributors rely on contributor history
Those of us who maintain large sections of the tree depend on knowing:
- Who made the change
- Their past editing behaviour
- Whether they are a trusted collaborator
This is not about policing others — it’s about maintaining accuracy and preventing repeated errors.
5. The change reduces accountability
When edits are anonymous, it becomes easier for:
- Mistakes to spread
- Incorrect merges to happen
- Unsourced changes to go unchallenged
Accountability is what keeps the shared tree stable.
Request
Please restore the ability to see the username of the contributor who made changes to vital information. Transparency is not optional in a collaborative environment — it is the foundation that allows the Family Tree to function.
Answers
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@SophiaRobberts Are you seeing these "FamilySearch" user names when you are looking at change logs? If that is the case, then do you have the "Improved Person Change Log" experiment turned on? There is an issue with that experiment which has been reported in early December in a couple of discussions:
What does it mean when it says "Change made by authorized support staff or as part of an update." and
FamilySearch making changes to relationships.
If your answer to both of my questions is "Yes", then I suggest that you turn the experiment off. Otherwise, could you provide a screenshot that shows where this issue is occurring?
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Here is an example of a profile. You will note that the user name and the date the user made the latest change to Birth, Death, Christening, etc are no longer showing.
This is the same for all profiles that I now look at?0 -
@SophiaRobberts Can you provide the PID #? It appears your attachment did not make it. When checking my change log, I see the contributors' usernames on all changes.
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@SophiaRobberts Re your comment starting "Here is an example…". I see that you posted it at 2 February 3:11AM, and it was edited at 3:14AM by Image Moderator. Those times are in my time zone (UTC+13:00). Did you perhaps edit that post yourself very soon after posting it? Sometimes, if you edit a comment that already contains an image, the image can disappear temporarily or permanently; you may see a warning message when you start the edit. This is a known behaviour; for your information, there is an explanation by @Sam Sulser in the last comment of this discussion: Vanilla losing image content.
With regard to your original question, can you please re-post the image and/or confirm whether the problem is related to change logs?
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Here is her example:
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I am looking into this. I see an issue logged into my public account. Sam 🙂
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I have made mistakes and it is very appreciated when someone lets me know so I can further investigate and change. This makes the records for FS much better and more accurate.
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@SophiaRobberts make sure you have the details switch turned on.
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