Can there be a warning popup before someone changes a name in Family Tree?
I couldn't figure out how to make a suggestion, so I am asking a question. Can there be a popup to prevent people from changing an ID to a totally different person? Far too many times people think they can fix problems by making one person look like a totally different person and it creates so many problems that take a lot of time to fix. It could say you can edit the name of this person, but you cannot change the name to a different person.
Answers
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@Dale Linda Hein This is in the works. I will refer this to the proper team :)
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Here is a help article https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/how-do-i-give-feedback-to-familysearch . Just in case you ever do want to give feedback or Suggest an Idea.
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I (again) experienced this problem recently. Instead of detaching the father / child relationship between two individuals, the FT user simply changed the name of the father to that of the child's father. I sent a Chat item to them, illustrating the problems this created - especially when every source attached to the renamed individual was in the name of the person for whom the profile was originally created!
I can only assume they were inexperienced in carrying out work in Family Tree, but am glad I happened to have that individual on my Following list, so I was able to quickly deal with the matter by reverting to the original name, then creating a new profile, to which the incorrectly placed child could be attached.
Although such changes appear in the Change Log, it does seem strange that changing a name comes with no warning / requirements, or need for any reason statement, as is required elsewhere - e.g., when changing Vitals events data, etc. **
** One exception is the Death field, whereby no warning is given if one deletes / over-types the existing detail: but that needs to be reported as a separate issue, I guess!
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If you need a really good example, I just helped someone who changed the names and data for 48 ID's to make them look like totally different people. 48! And three of them were merged into other ID's because those ID's had the same name, so three incorrect merges. And he contacted us "frustrated" because he is an expert genealogist (probably true) and people are angry with him because he made "corrections." This is a HUGE problem. I hope a warning goes up soon. If whoever works on these things wants the ticket number I can give it to them. It has links to every page where he changed the name to a different person.
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@Dale Linda Hein That sounds like a horror story!
We'd love some sample ID's that we can dig into where this has happened.
Thanks for reaching out!1 -
@Mary Anna Ebert and @Dale Linda Hein - this sort of thing has been going on for years. Literally. I flippantly refer to it as the "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" but no-one has been able to come up with a sensible explanation of why someone just alters John Doe's profile to be one for Fred Bloggs.
The best thing that I can come up with is that the person who Dale refers to, lacks either the knowledge that the profiles he updated are used elsewhere or the necessary ability to think in the abstract and realise that something exists other than what is immediately visible on the screen. If he was altering sheets of paper, each with independent existence, it might not matter.
It's a problem and I'm sure that part of the issue is that many of us simply can't get into the headspace of the "Body snatchers". I know I can't.
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I was asked for examples. Sorry this didn't copy correctly. I tried to edit it, but when I click Edit it looks correct. You can still click on them though.
https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/MQBD-R61/preferred-namehttps://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/GBCP-VCS/preferred-namehttps://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/KZQM-XQT/preferred-namehttps://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/LCV4-J6H/preferred-namehttps://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/KV2W-LY1/preferred-namehttps://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/KV23-CCB/preferred-namehttps://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/PXNF-NZM/preferred-namehttps://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/9KJ9-GDH/preferred-namehttps://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/P3D6-WP7/preferred-namehttps://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/GK1K-RY4/preferred-namehttps://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/PZMC-6ZP/preferred-namehttps://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/PZMC-W4C/preferred-namehttps://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/PX5K-QTH/preferred-namehttps://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/L24C-R3K/preferred-namehttps://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/LVJ1-9B9/preferred-namehttps://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/9KCZ-5B2/preferred-namehttps://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/L6VK-WCF/preferred-namehttps://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/L6VK-WM1/preferred-namehttps://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/L27Z-F2L/preferred-namehttps://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/LRM3-S3W/preferred-namehttps://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/L6VK-7FV/preferred-namehttps://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/GBR2-QN8/preferred-namehttps://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/GBR2-7J1/preferred-namehttps://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/LKYB-XW9/preferred-namehttps://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/LTYM-628/preferred-namehttps://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/GS13-R1S/preferred-namehttps://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/218N-LJG/preferred-namehttps://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/P91R-VY8/preferred-namehttps://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/MWW2-MGL/preferred-namehttps://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/K2Q9-C6K/preferred-namehttps://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/GDL6-N4S/preferred-namehttps://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/GTRY-C5B/preferred-namehttps://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/MN9M-NQK/preferred-namehttps://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/GNJV-6P4/preferred-namehttps://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/P4K5-3T3/preferred-namehttps://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/GH69-JX5/preferred-namehttps://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/L1L8-3FQ/preferred-namehttps://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/PHVD-RMH/preferred-namehttps://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/M3Q3-7W2/preferred-namehttps://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/G4TG-9L3/preferred-namehttps://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/G8YJ-TJS/preferred-namehttps://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/G346-4FN/preferred-name:https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/G346-4FN/preferred-name
And these are incorrect merges that happened after the name of one was changed.
https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/PHJM-B5Z
https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/L23N-YRL
https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/LDTV-V17
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I think that the attitude of the user can be summed up by looking at the reason on this page for one of the affected profiles (Mary Talliaferro aka Elizabeth Lilburne). This needs to be reported as abuse.
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And here:
https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/MQBD-R61/birth
This is very clearly abuse, per the FS criteria:
"Disagreements regarding facts pertaining to a deceased individual are likely to occur, and such disagreements should be set out in clear terms based on the facts and citing sources where possible, without resorting to abrupt, insulting, or unkind language or comments."
I recently reported abusive language - all the inappropriate comments were promptly deleted in 4 calendar days (3 week days).3 -
Re the comment highlighted by @Nyx773 , I would say that I would not question their scholarship. What I do question is their understanding of the system that they are working on. They seem to totally misunderstand the nature of FamilySearch and how what they have trampled over, affects others. These are not sheets of paper that are only used in one place.
I am desperately trying to understand their motivation and that of others who follow similar paths.
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Perhaps they just enjoy being disruptive (basically, they're a troll).
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Trying to understand their motives and trying to get bullies and trolls to comprehend is a waste of time.
My only point above was that the comment I linked to and especially the comment linked to by @JulianBrown38 are very clear violations of the code of conduct and need to be reported as abuse.
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@MandyShaw1 and @Nyx773 - regrettably, there is a distinct chance that you are right.
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So here is my stance on one of my ancestors who lived from the 1600s to the 1700s. Born in Germanic Europe and died in Maryland. His info has been mucked over, disputed, edited, reverted, edited again, reverted again so many times I have begun to realize that if my descendants fight over me that much 300+ years from now, I think I will be very happy. I used to get upset but not any more. I just follow him and watch the minions duke it out. Yes, I've had land record images removed, but since I made them into memory sources, they remain in the sources.
Sometimes if there is this much controversy it's best to remain neutral rather than work yourself up into a state. To make matters worse, I just stumbled over a Lutheran death record of the woman I know was his wife (according to the FS change history he's had up to 5 or 6 at this point), and it literally says wife of 38 years, proving he had only 1 wife. Here's the controversial part. I'm seriously considering NOT adding the source and not editing the wives. Sigh. That goes against everything FamilySearch stands for, but I'm just not up for the potential backlash.
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Thank you for discussing this so much. Maybe it will get more attention that way. But I did want to comment on a couple of things. I think the reason this person did what he did is exactly why I first posted about this. He didn't understand that when you see a wrong person in one of your lines, you delete the relationship. You don't change the name and vital information to make the wrong person look like someone else. And that is why I think a popup warning when you click to Edit a name is sooooo crucial. I don't think his motives were malicious, but I agree he made abusive comments. Also, it isn't a matter of disputing about an ancestor's information. It's a matter of changing your ancestor into an entirely different person, who then often gets merged into another ID for that entirely different person, which happened three times in my examples. I don't care so much if others disagree about my ancestor's information, but I don't want them totally erasing my ancestor from the tree.
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I see that some of the changes have been reverted. I wonder if these profiles might be better left alone in the meantime. I imagine that the FS engineers will have tools that could find all the changes that have been made by the user, and revert them (assuming that this gets escalated). If I am right, it would save a lot of work for users who might read this discussion and think of helping clean up the mess. It might also find other profiles that have been treated similarly.
I have only come across a handful of such hijackings in over 5 years of using the Family Tree, and none of those have involved my own relatives. By a strange coincidence, just yesterday, I did find such a case. I was using Family Tree Maker to check up on some new hints that had been offered by Family Tree. I discovered that the mother-in-law of one of my uncles had been hijacked in 2024 (by a different user from the current case, I should add). The following items on the profile were changed:
- First names (the last name was unchanged)
- Sex
- Date and place of birth
- Date and place of death
- Spouse (replaced)
- Children (replaced)
The other items that were attached to the profile were left unchanged. They were a memory (a photo that is definitely of a woman) and 4 external Ancestry sources, none of which actually name the woman. Strangely, a search for similar people to the original profile revealed another profile for the same woman; it was created in January 2026 by another user (not the hijacker) who had previously contributed some of the sources to the hijacked profile in the 2010s.
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Hopefully the user has changed some of the names back since I explained the problem. I have never found this problem in my own tree but I have been doing support for 13 years and have seen it for others a lot. I’ll post here every time I see it.
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@Dale Linda Hein The few profiles that I looked at had been changed back by another user. For an example, click the first one on your list.
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sc woz, You convinced me. I just reported abuse. Thank you.
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Here are more examples.
https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/LD9Y-NR2 This one was added as a woman Ann Arnott. This user changed her to William Abercrombie and changed her sex to male to fit the name.
This one from Archibald Abercrombie to James Abercrombie to William Abercrombie to Mrs. William Abercrombie, and the one who changed him to a Mrs. also changed the sex. You would have to go to all changes to see the sex change.
https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/LD9Y-NGX/preferred-name
This one started out as Margaret Goolde and the name was changed Libra Hamilton, then William Abercrombie, then Libra Abercrombie, back to Libra Hamilton, back to William Abercrombie, back to Libra Hamilton and then someone did two merges with other LIbra Hamilton's. And there were at least three sex changes to accommodate all of this madness. And then she got merged into another Libra Hamilton, so who knows how many different people are in that ID now.
https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/PQJ8-BLX
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