User creating unsupported fabricated relationship
I have been conducting a one-name study of the Norwood family within Kent primarily in the Isle of Thanet for the past few years. To date, I have transcribed almost two-thirds of roughly 160 Norwood wills from this area.
A recurring issue I’ve encountered involves another user who insists on linking Thomas Norwood (MG86-WWD), a farmer in Thanet to whom I am distantly related, as the son of Francis Norwood (LCXR-L1V) of Leckhampton, Gloucestershire, a royalist line. This claim is made without any supporting evidence or references. While such a connection would be an exciting discovery if it were true, the available records make it clear that it is not.
Although I have not yet been able to pinpoint the immediate parents of Thomas Norwood (MG86-WWD), I am confident that I have identified his grandparents within the same town, based on interlinked wills of relatives. However, I have refrained from creating this connection on FamilySearch until I can be 100% certain.
On the other hand, the line of Francis Norwood (LCXR-L1V) of Leckhampton is well documented. His residence, Leckhampton Court, remained in the Norwood family for nearly 400 years and still stands today as the Sue Ryder Leckhampton Court Hospice.
https://www.greatbritishlife.co.uk/magazines/cotswold/22582954.changing-faces-leckhampton-court/
https://www.familysearch.org/memories/memory/221801085
Francis also had a son named Thomas Norwood (G8DH-7P7), who became Rector of Leckhampton, left a Will, and died there. This is a critical link in the Leckhampton Norwood family history, and it provides definitive proof that Thomas Norwood (MG86-WWD), the farmer in Thanet, could not have been the son of Francis Norwood (LCXR-L1V). Unfortunately, the user I mentioned continues to delete the Rector, Thomas Norwood (G8DH-7P7), from the tree and replace him with my relative, Thomas Norwood the farmer (MG86-WWD).
I have repeatedly reached out to this user, sharing extensive evidence on the Leckhampton line, and clarifying that my Thomas Norwood of Thanet is not related. However, I have yet to receive a response. The fabricated relationship between the Leckhampton Norwoods and the Thanet Thomas Norwood of this period continues to be reintroduced.
I have also contacted FamilySearch regarding this matter, but they have stated that they do not intervene in user disputes. While I fully understand that genuine mistakes in linking family members happen frequently, this case appears to involve the deliberate creation of a false relationship, which undermines the accuracy of the historical record and the one world FS family tree
What else can be done at this point? I feel I've run out of options, aside from repeatedly fixing the family line after it has been deliberately fabricated.
Answers
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You could always open a C.E.T. which allows you to edit your information in a private Family Tree and it will not be edited or edit the World wide tree.
FamilySearch CET stands for Controlled Edit Tree, a feature that allows users to create and manage their own private or public family trees with FamilySearch's tools, providing more control over editing and privacy than the main shared Family Tree. Users typically start a CET by uploading a GEDCOM file, and the owner can then invite collaborators, share the tree publicly (showing only deceased, non-sensitive individuals), or keep it entirely private.
You begin by uploading your GEDCOM file at
- User Ownership and Control:Unlike the main FamilySearch Family Tree, where all users can edit shared information, a CET is owned by a specific user who controls who can view and edit it.
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I already keep a private family tree. It’s not on C.E.T., but thank you. I wasn't aware FS introduced the feature. I’ll take a look.
My question is more about the one-world tree, since I prefer and really enjoy the collaborative aspect of everyone working together to build and improve a shared tree.
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@Wayne Munro Norton I have a similar situation. I finally was able to stop most of the mess-making by researching the other person's family and proving that there was no connection. Unfortunately, there is still a lot of residual mess to clean up.
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Looking at the profile for MG86-WWD it looks like you have done a great job documenting everything. A couple more things you might do are to:
- Add a Brief Life History
- Write up all your documentation like you have done here that outlines all the evidence for Thomas's true parentage and against his false parentage and post it as a Story on his profile. Everything on a profile can be edited and most of it can be deleted. Even memories can be detached. But I don't think Stories can be removed or edited by anyone but the author.
- In addition, post the documentation as a Discussion under the Collaboration tab. Notes can be deleted but again, unless something has changed since I last checked this out, on the original poster can delete a discussion.
- I assume you are one of the four people following him? If not, you should be.
Otherwise just keep playing King on the Hill. Make it a regular routine, say once a week, to check the profile and repair relationships as needed. Either the other user will finally contact you or will eventually give up.
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Thank you Gordon for the additional suggestions. Especially posting evidence for and against is a great idea.
I don't follow this user, since the line he has created doesn't make a lot of sense.
Although I follow the profiles of my ancestors to know when changes / improvements are made.0 -
@Wayne Munro Norton It's not possible to follow a user; we can only follow the profiles of our ancestors or other profiles resident in the FS tree.
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One other thought. Are you aware that you can see who else if following Thomas and have you tried to contact them to enroll them in your effort? If you are really lucky one of them will personally know this other user and be able to sit down face to face and explain things. Yes, it a long shot. Or at least if all three of you try to contact him and help monitor Thomas' profile may be he eventually accept that he is out voted.
If you haven't seen this feature before or for others who read this and have never done this, it is a bit hidden so I'll run through the steps.
Starting at Thomas' profile:
Click the star to follow him.
Then go to your Following list and type the part of his name in the Search by Name box:
This next point is critical. As you see my list is empty because there have been no changes since I started following him. However, this next part would not work even if there had been because of how my list is set. Click on the options button to open the side panel. I have View By set to All Changes. If I switch to View by Person I get this:
See the three vertical dots See More icon? That is only there when you view by person. It vanishes if you view all changes.
Clicking on those dots brings up this menu:
Click on # People Following to get:
Click on any of the user names (not mine, I'll be leaving) to see if you are related, see an e-mail address if the user has that public, or to start a chat with the person:
You can also go through Thomas' Change Log and gather user names to contact who are not following the profile, but since they are not following it, they may not have the same interest in maintaining it.
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Yes, quite often I'll find and collaborate with users commonto my branches (similar to your steps above), following their progress oncertain lines and vice-versa. Especially valuable when working with records from countries in different languages, where interpreting registry entriescan make a big difference.
I'm not sure how much benefit it would be in this situation where the user is simly creating imaginary family lines and appears to disregard any verified source material.
When trying to communicate with this user, the source document FS links I had directly messaged him were not opened (viewed).
It’s interesting. Over the years on FamilySearch, I’ve met many passionate familytree builders. Mistakes happen, of course, but almost always we’ve been able to work together to resolve errors with the help of source material. This is the first time I’ve encountered someone who simply ignores evidence.
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It occurs to me that it's possible the offending user is accessing FamilySearch entirely via a third-party product and is not checking their FS messages in any way, thus if an email address is provided that may be the best approach. (Such a scenario could perhaps also explain failures to read useful information on the profile such as notes/alerts/stories, although it doesn't of course explain a failure to spot someone else updating the profile on a regular basis.)
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