Correcting Errors
New to FS. My "shared" family tree is chock full of errors contributed by others. I don't mind sharing my tree, but how can I stop it from importing others blatantly wrong undocumented information? How do I undo all the errors? Or do I just delete the whole thing and start over?
Best Answers
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Welcome to the FamilySearch community. Thank you for the time you spend asking questions
We hope these suggestions help you in making corrections in your Family Tree.
FamilySearch does not provide an option to delete your family tree to start over. The FamilySearch Family Tree is a single collaborative tree intended to connect the entire human family.
If you find errors in Family Tree, you can make corrections and attach sources to support your changes. See the articles linked below to learn how.
Related articles
What is the purpose of FamilySearch and Family Tree?
How do I correct parent-child relationships in Family Tree?
How do I change vital information in Family Tree?
What are sources in Family Tree?
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In Family Tree, you can correct the name, sex, or event information for a person, regardless of whether you added it.
Family Tree is an open, collaborative environment. Your change shows in a change history, along with your user ID and a means to contact you. Any user, including you, can reverse changes if you make a mistake.
Before you start
- Focus on accuracy. Your change should make the information about a person more correct.
- Be prepared to explain your changes, and, when possible, attach sources.
- Consider contacting the user who made the last change before you make a correction. To find contact information, click Detail View. Then click the name showing in the "Last Changed" details.
- Be aware that other Family Tree users could be watching this record. (You can see how many are watching when you make your correction.) They receive an email notification if you change the record. They might contact you to discuss your change.
Steps (Website)
- In Family Tree, display the person page of the individual whose information you want to correct.
- If you do not see Vitals near the top of the screen, click Details.
- For the information you need to correct, click Edit.
- Review the sources and reason statement. Continue only if your change makes the information more accurate.
- When editing a name, choose the appropriate language in the field above the name fields.
- Make your changes.
- If the option is available to delete information, you can click Delete in the bottom right corner of the box.
- If you change a date or place, select a standardized date or place. If no matching standard is available, click None of the Above.
- Enter a reason statement to explain why the information is correct. If the existing reasoning is applicable, leave the existing explanation, and add your own comments.
- Click Save.
Note: We recommend that you refresh the web page after you save changes.
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As detailed in the above article, FamilySearch does not have an option to delete your family lines in the communal tree and start over but there are ways to make corrections as detailed in the above article.
A few additional thoughts that may help..... Working with others in a 'shared' tree environment can be challenging at times (remember there are no 'private tree's but one large communal tree), but working together can have great benefits as well. Changes by others can mean that additional sources can be added or information that we have not found in our own research.
There are some in-built features in FamilySearch that can take much of the frustration out of working with others. For example, adding plenty of sources or other information to provide 'evidence' for your conclusion and maybe even a 'life sketch' so someone else can easily see the key events may prevent the record from being mixed up with a person of a similar name. Here is an article from the FamilySearch Help Centre that gives many other ideas on how you can prevent inappropriate changes from being made by others. I have found them to be very useful.
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Answers
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Attaching historical records and standardizing dates and place names goes a long, long way to stopping bad edits in the first place. Those edits are being driven by bad hints from FT.
Cleaning up the tree effectively stops bad edits!
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