How do I keep other people from changing information in my family tree?
I get frustrated when people change what I've put into my family tree. How can I stop them from making changes?
Best Answer
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There are a lot of us who feel your pain. We are dealing with a world tree and anyone can come along and change our work. I was told having sources would slow the changes down, but even with birth and death records attached, someone will come along and merge my person who died as an infant with someone who was married.
So some things to do.
Click on the Follow star so you'll be notified when changes are made and you can fix things early.
Other researchers range from professional genealogists to 12-year-olds so you need to be careful when sending a message explaining what they did wrong. We want them to get better, not quit.
Keep a copy of your work where only you can edit it such as the free version of RootsMagic or a subscription site such as Ancestry.
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Answers
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This is not an acceptable solution. I could end up watching hundreds if not thousands of people. I have contacted the person concerned, but got no reply.
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Yup, that is the problem with a world tree. I follow about 3,000 people and the rest of them, I just hope for the best and make corrections when I run into them again.
I was contacted yesterday by a person who told me I had made a mistake and her ancestor was not my ancestor. I had to go through the change log to find out what happened. Turns out someone before me had changed the person's name, birth date, and birth place which then made it a match for my person and I merged them.
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I have a similar problem where a person not related to a particular family line has added in sources and even a sibling just because the names are similar.
My direct lines are the Bromby and Tennent families and one soon realise that there a many persons which similar or the same combination of names.
Maybe it exists but would it not help to have a basic "do's and don't" guide section within the main Familysearch site?
I also have an issue with children being given the surname of their future marriage status as opposed to their actual registered birth name.
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This is an age old problem, but there are some tools that we can use to help others stop making mistakes in THE tree (ie. not your tree, or my tree but OUR tree).
- Use the Follow feature as has been mentioned. You don't receive as many changes as you might expect.
- Use the Life Sketch area to put some key information in eg. Sam is a twin to Saul, or This is a son who died as an infant and the family later named another son the same name (common for the time).
- Attach sources. Always. And you can reference them in the reason statement eg. Father's name is mentioned in marriage record - see source attached. We can also edit the title of a source to add info eg. image shows date (or use the Describe the Record section of the source).
- Always give a Reason Statement for making changes (even if others don't always!).
- Use the Messaging option to kindly let people know they're merging incorrectly, or adding a different family, etc.
- The Discussion and Notes tool can be used to have discussions around the record, and clarify information.
Hopefully this list is helpful and clear...we do what we can when we share a family! 🧒👦👵
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I try to pre-empt changes if I think there could be a problem with duplicates and merging by putting notes in the collaborate field. To draw attention to that I put a short note in the life history field too - saying something like 'see notes in collaborate tab'.
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I agree with all the frustrated family search members who find their information has been changed or even deleted & I've had to re-input the information only to find it has been changed yet again. The information I enter for any particular ancestor is based on hard copy records, which mostly has been corroborated by living family or anecdotal history.
I am also aware that certain of my ancestors moved around the world & married at least 3 times during their lifetime, with families in the UK, USA, Australia, India & possibly elsewhere, which would account for different branches of the family, around the world, with the same ancestor, altering information in the family tree based on their own proof & anecdotal history.
One should bear in mind that the information input by any contributor to Family Search, is based on their family history from their own family's perspective which may appear to be incorrect to a different branch of the family who may have no knowledge of the existence of this 'other' family from elsewhere in the world.
As an example, my paternal ancestor Thomas Moore, born in 1830 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, (as per inscription on his gravestone), was married at least 4 times according to my research. With each marriage he changed his DOB e.g. 1834, 1836 (obviously he was getting older with each marriage & his brides were getting younger!!) I have therefore found several Thomas Moore's "created" on Family Search just because each marriage record indicated a different birth year and my information about the 'other' wives and children have been removed. I am aware these 'other' families are linked to me through a common ancestor, as they have been DNA matched to me.
I don't believe I will be adding any additional information to the "one world" family tree.
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Working in a 'shared/communal' environment such as Family Tree can be a challenge and frustrating sometimes, but also has many benefits. Not all changes are bad either - others may add great source material that you have not come across or links to other family members that you have not noticed before.
FamilySearch has a number of in-built features that can help prevent inaccurate changes. Here is an article from the FamilySearch Help Centre that may help:
From my own personal experience, (and I know this is not always the case) the more source information you add to provide solid evidence for your research and conclusions, the fewer inaccurate changes are likely to be made.
Hope this helps.
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I have been having a similar issue with another member / user who has taken it on themselves to "clean up" my profiles. This person has been busy deleting sources on my profiles and also changed names of spouses. It is a great pity that unknown persons are allowed to go on a mission to create mayhem for other users who are genuinely researching their family trees. This person has been sending me messages intimating that I do not know what I am doing and citing supposed inaccuracies in the profiles that I have placed on Family Search. As you may well imagine I was furious. Those who create these issues / problems should be excluded or blocked.
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I TOTALLY AGREE! I had traced my ancestors back to the 1500's and SOMEONE has changed it ALL! ALSO, I have contacted these folks and they do not reply
I found and corrected SOOOOO many things that made NO SENSE and now it is all undone! I am canceling here and moving to a better site.
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This is ridiculous... I will be deleting my information...
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For anyone new to the collaborative nature of FamilyTree
check out these videos:
WHY USE FAMILYSEARCH FAMILYTREE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwRSRZ9amlM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epUcr4cH_EQ
For anyone really wanting total control of their own private Genealogical database - FamilyTree may not be the best fit for you - but rather a standalone program like Roots Magic, FTM, Or Ancestral Quest.
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I have the same problem as many others on this site. I am being told of relatives I have or now discovered that in no way belong to my ancestors. I have changed the information and left notes so many times that I just feel like giving up. I really do not have the time or energy to keep altering false information. I love using Family search but this is a real problem for many people and misleading not only for myself but for others trying to find out about their ancestors.
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This has been a problem forever. I have a stalker from Findagrave who is an administrator. This person now goes on my tree and changes my info, I cannot contact FamilySearch because the last time I asked them about my great Uncle, this was their reply. "They were divorced so it doesnt matter anyway. Basically you are not related to him!" word for word my friends. So we complain and nobody cares. Go to Ancestry if you can. At least you can lock your tree.
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So true, any of the sites you mentioned are horrid. Now Billiongraves is doing it too.
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I would be interested in finding out what you have learned in the year and a half+ since you posted this question, @Paul Willnauer! Have you heard about the changes currently being implemented, and discovered that any of these may be helpful? Building a collaborative tree is a very difficult thing as we realize the seeming impossibility of the feat, because we all seem to see and need something very different from one another.
As pointed out multiple times, we first realize it cannot be viewed as "my family tree", and there are novice, professional and other sorts involved in building "our shared family tree". Hope you are doing well and really would be interested in what, if anything, has been helpful during the past 20+ months that has shaped your current views of FamilySearch Family Tree and the other partner sites. Best Regards!
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I think it is horrible the way people can just go in and change people's names, delete all their temple work that's been done for them, match them up to people they were never married to, give them children they never had, and all without having any documentation. I worked very hard for years to get all of my non-member family on there so Temple work could be done as they passed away and so much of it has been changed and I go in and I try to change it back and then it gets changed again and never with documentation.. people just go in and change things with no explanation whatsoever. I received the information directly from my family members. I knew all of these people and my parents knew all of these people and we have all their documents and vital records and know about their lives. The entire purpose of Family Search was to get Temple work accurately done for our ancestors and many are making a mockery out of the whole thing with the system we're using. It has gotten so bad that some youth leaders are even having the teens redo baptising their their family names as new people just so they can have the practice/experience. There are many who don't understand we are doing Temple work for people not for data and saying God will work it all out in heaven is just not a responsible answer. One thing that could help is if there has to be a source to make changes and an explanation.
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Reading these comments, this problem looks to be worse than I thought. So far, the changes made to my entries have been real facts (like residence in a census year). But they have been made by multiple people in places like Africa or South America where I have no connection whatsoever. Maybe they think they are being helpful. I keep my primary family tree information on MyHeritage, where I have total access control. Family Search is a very valuable resource, but privacy is becoming a scarce and abused commodity. I wish I could offer ideas to solve the problem, but the steps that have been taken already should mitigate the problem to some degree without compromising the underlying philosophy. People who use the service should do so with their eyes open.
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Firstly, thank you all for validating my frustration at this seemingly intrusive practice of allowing, without first communicating, anyone to change and delete information. Secondly, is the FamilySearch (FS) autogenerated digital 'Brief Life History' that I had to re-do on some of my ancestors because it was simply wrong. On my grandmothers story FS had made her 2nd husband the preferred husband and talked about him, which wiped out my grandfather, her 1st husband, and their children and descending generations, including me! Now, although a re-write can be done, and by changing the preferred husband brings me and mine back, it is highly frustrating! Especially so when you don't get on FS as much as you would like, then a family member rings and says "Hey, we've disappeared". Clearly these FS generated Histories are random, and quite frankly should not be allowed without permission 🖖
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Ngatizion The one world tree is open edit. It is not intrusive when you update your ancestors, and since you share those ancestor with potentially hundreds of others, it would not be intrusive for them either. Also, many have access to information about people who are not their direct ancestor. It is good when they can add information.
Many people are new and don't understand the concept of sourcing. All information should be backed up with a source of some kind. Brief life histories are not FS generated, they have been written by users like you, and you can see and message those who wrote them. The choice of which spouse is preferred is entirely up to you. FS will set a default spouse to be preferred (because it is necessary to have one set), and you may change it. Nothing gets wiped out. The whole point of YOU changing the preferred setting is so you can control which lineages appear in the pedigree view.
So if you had to wait for permission to make an edit to the tree, how happy would you be? Thus, this is an open edit one world tree. We all work together.
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You say, "Brief life histories are not FS generated", which might appear to be true when viewing from the Details page, but an auto-generated version does appear on the About page, which I believe is what @Ngatizion is referencing here.
The clear instructions on how to edit the auto-generated comments are provided at https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/correct-a-brief-life-history. However, as I never refer to the About pages myself, I thought I'd test how this works and, sure enough, my "xxx" entry replaced the auto-generated stuff, once I'd checked "Publish this Brief Life History to the about page".
Thinking the original comments might be useful for another FT user, I worried that my actions might appear to be some kind of vandalism. However, as hoped, deleting my own contribution brought back the auto-generated ones to the About page!
To me, the "moral of this story" is to keep away from the About page - in line with my recommending to opt out of all those gimmicky notifications about famous relatives and surname meanings. Although, regarding the latter, today's rare visit to the About page of a relative led me to find there is also a Name Meaning section on the page: which no doubt proves equally annoying to the many users who know an alternative (unpublished) version of the origin of their surname.
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