I do not want anyone to make changes to my tree. What good are passwords if any fool can change my

LegacyUser

LegacyUser

JT said: It isn't "Your" Tree. It's everyone's tree, regardless of how close or distant their relationship to you may be.

So when you make a change, be sure to spell out in complete detail the basis of facts related to any change you make. How do you know its correct? How could someone else agree to it? Be as logical as you can. Don't be afraid to spell out details. It's not always obvious to the next person who examines your changes.

LegacyUser

A van Helsdingen said: The FSFT is an open-edit tree, meaning anyone with a FS account can edit the tree.

If you encounter vandals or highly incompetent users, and after contacting them they show no sign of apologizing or fixing their mistakes, you should contact FS Support. But be warned that FS Support has a very high threshold for when they will intervene. A genuine disagreement over facts is not a reason for them to take action- in those cases you should use the discussion features provided to debate and present evidence for each of the possible alternatives.

If you don't like this style of genealogy, there are a range of software programs that allow you to build your own personal tree that no one else can edit.

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.

Since you are new to this forum, it is also likely that you are relatively new or inexperienced with FamilySearch Family Tree, but not necessarily genealogy. We see this same kind of concern from people who have not worked extensively with the massive tree on this site. I have prepared the following material to help you and others like yourself understand the nature of the tree and how to use what I have found to be effective methods in maintaining reliable records.

Some the following repeats what was already posted.

Introducing FamilySearch Family Tree

FamilySearch FamilyTree is a single tree that is a collaborative effort, built around an open-edit model, allowing any person, including yourself to add to and make changes on any person who lived throughout history, including all of our deceased relatives.

There is no "my tree" in FamilySearch FamilyTree — it is a tree for all mankind. If you have found errors, you need to know why those errors are there. It could be that someone incorrectly combined another person's record with your relative. It could be that someone found a source that they thought applied to your relative, but it did not. It could be that someone just knew that their information was correct and entered that.

There are sites that support independent trees and building them. FamilySearch is not one of those sites.

If you are unfamiliar with how to work with the massive tree (now containing over 1.2 Billion persons), The Family History Guide (http://thefhguide.com/) is an approved training resource. It not only contains procedures for working with the site and the massive tree, but also exercises for you to use.

As to the incorrect information -- Those who make changes usually believe they are related to the person for which they are making changes. Their changes may be valid, invalid, or contain errors and may lack support from primary and secondary source material. Or the changes may be based on misinformation, or information that was copied from an unreliable source.

The desire to belong to an elite group of people, such as Mayflower Descendants, the Daughters of the American Revolution, or the Sons of the American Revolution has likewise produced some inventive genealogies.

Not all participants who add to and make changes to existing material have the same level of knowledge and experience. Novices or Newbies often try their best to be useful, but they can and will make mistakes (even us old-timers can make mistakes), some of which are going to cause concern. Others are convinced that their information is factual, despite not having primary or secondary sources that validate their information.

While this can be frustrating, remember that everyone has been at one time or another in their lives, or is now, a novice or newbie. I remember what it was like for me, now over fifty years ago.

To minimize the changes others make to the tree, there are several things that I have found to be largely effective, given the nature that many inappropriate changes are being made by people who are new to FamilySearch FamilyTree, or do not work with the tree on any kind of regular basis.

1. I make sure every deceased person I work with in the tree is fully sourced with citations that can be used to locate original records, not only with sources from Fam… [truncated]