I have a series of corrections and additional family members and their birth and death dates. How c

LegacyUser

Donald Hendrix said: I have the correct spelling of the names of Amund Olsen and his wife, Cecelia Sonesson who lived in Peshtigo, Marinette, Wisconsin from ca. 1877 until ca. 1906. I have traced Amund's family back several generations in Hedmark, Norway and Cecelia's (then called Sissa) ancestry traced back to Ryd parish, Brakne-Hoby, Blekinge lan Sweden. I also have a number of children not in the present records for this family and also in their ancestry which I would like to have included in the records. How might this be accomplished?
dlhendrix@rockisland.com

LegacyUser

A van Helsdingen said: Where are you seeing the errors?

If the errors are in the FamilySearch FamilyTree, then you can edit this yourself. The FSFT is a "one world tree" that everyone with a free FS Account can edit, with the goal of producing a single, accurate family tree for all humanity. Please make sure to include sources for all facts you include.

If the errors are in historical records, such as censuses, vital records, wills etc, you may be able to edit errors. The option of clicking "edit" besides names will appear if it is available. For many records this is not available because FS has obtained the information from another website.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: First, welcome to the community support forum for FamilySearch. FamilySearch personnel read every discussion thread and may or may not respond as their time permits. We all share an active interest in using the resources of this site and as users, we have various levels of knowledge and experience and do our best to help each other with concerns, issues, and/or questions.

A couple of things to keep in mind:

1) Peoples' names often changed over time, especially since many people living before the middle of the 20th century were not particularly adept at using their name the same way through their life. Illiteracy didn't help matters and often the person making the record spelled the name the way their heard it.

2) By the middle of the 20th century, most governments (through mandate) forced their people into using the same name the same way with the same spelling -- the introduction of Social Security in the United States is a good example of this. Sometimes, this happened far back in history, such as when the British took over the Dutch Settlements in America, so it all depends upon the historical situation with your ancestors and their descendants.

Errors in computer indexes can be corrected, but FamilySearch has been slow to adopt a mean that allows users to correct the indexes. This is slowly being developed, but in the meantime, if you are working with your relatives in the massive tree, you can attach the sources and make changes to the source title and also note any errors in the original source documents (not just the indexed entries).

One thing that we should not do is to correct original historical documents (but we can correct the indexes, even to the point of correctly identifying the person). The ability to fully correct an indexed entry will come with time for FamilySearch.