FamilySearch adds incorrect family to an individual everytime a descendant creates a new account.
How can I stop this from happening? Anytime a new descendant of Ethel KWCX-7G6 creates a FamilySearch account, the software adds a wrong husband, Arthur Huntington Phillips KG1P-PGJ, that she never had. Trust me the two lived in different states and had different spouses and children. The husbands' names are similar and in 2022 someone incorrectly added Arthur Huntington Phillips to her in FamilySearch for the first time. I caught it the next month and changed it back. Looking at the change log, Arthur H. gets added a lot. The most recent times are definitely all done by the software because I'd already posted warnings. I didn't realize it was the software and not people until my daughter, Mariam Kay, created an account with me watching. She never looked at any profiles, but the change log shows that she added the relationship, the marriage and the child of Ethel that she's descended through. I talked to a FamilySearch helper on the phone while correcting a later instance and the helper suggested posting the question here. My suspicion is that someone sealed Ethel to Arthur H. and now FamilySearch somehow remembers that and tries to create a tree using the sealing. Thank you so much for your help!
Answers
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@PhillipsAmyR
Do you have the Improved Person Change Log Labs Experiment turned on?
If you do, try turning it off. When you do, you'll see the name of the contributor who made the change(s).
You can access the Labs section here: https://www.familysearch.org/en/labs
Hope this helps.
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I just tried the Change Log Lab Experiment. I hadn't known about it. Thanks! It shows that all the new "contributors", including my daughter, show up as "FamilySearch" with the lab on. My changes still show up as mine. That confirms that it is the software and not the new youth accounts that keep making the relationship changes to Ethel.
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So, how do we stop FamilySearch from doing this?
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@PhillipsAmyR "Answered" just means that a comment has been made. It's not an indication of a resolution.
To be clear, FamilySearch is not doing it. It's a glitch in the software.
You'll see numerous threads in the dedicated feedback group. https://community.familysearch.org/en/group/339-improved-person-change-log0 -
@Sorry @@ I'm brand new to this community. I don't mean to sound mean at all. It sounds like you're saying the feedback group that discusses the Improved Person Change Log has numerous threads about incorrect contributions. Is that right? I will stop calling the software, FamilySearch, and just call it the software. The problem I'm having is with account creation and the software automatically changing relatives. The contributor in the change log is irrelavent to me. I saw the software change the relationships in an instant when my daughter created her account.
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As gently but firmly as I can, I suggest you join and participate in the dedicated feedback group, which I linked above. I'm not staff or a mod, just an experienced user of the website.
In the Feedback group, you'll have the opportunity to interact with the Engineers and mods involved with the project.
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@PhillipsAmyR Aside from the confusion caused by the New Change Log, your situation seems very similar to what a couple of users have experienced. I have an open Support case on this challenging issue, and I updated that case to include your post. This is a very thorny issue, but I have hope that some of the insights gained from your case may lead to a solution.
See https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/185187/why-does-peder-hansen-keep-having-his-brother-039-s-wives-added-to-him
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@PhillipsAmyR There was a similar discussion in early 2024. It was closed months later, unfortunately without any direct explanation from FamilySearch as to how or why these changes were made. In that case also, multiple users made identical changes (in that case with non-standardised places repeatedly). Most of the users who updated the profile in that case are now shown as being unreachable via Chat; I don't know whether that was the case at the time, though. In that case, another user who contributed to that discussion made some changes to the profile. That seems to have been effective as there haven't been any more changes made to the affected profile.
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Thank you @JulianBrown38 and @Alan E. Brown Those two cases match what I am seeing plus my added insight about account creation. I'm new and don't know exactly what a case being closed means or how things get fixed. I did read everything from those two cases and here are my observations. The changes seem to be automated. Many new accounts are created by youth who cannot be contacted in the chat even if they had physically contributed. The only suggestion to fix it was detangling PIDs from old merges. I checked and my two Arthurs were never merged. So that would not help.
@Áine.ní.Donnghaile Sorry I started you down the Change Log Lab Experiment path. I had never tried that or any experiment in FamilySearch prior to your suggestion. I shouldn't have mentioned the differences I saw when I tried it because the bugs in the change log experiment are unrelated to my tree changes during account creation bug which has been around much longer than the experiment. Thank you for your suggestion though.
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