Incorrect person added to my tree
A new ancestor has been incorrectly added to my tree by someone else that I do not know. I have tried to delete this entry but this is not allowed as another person is affected. It does not seem right that another person can modify my tree and prevent me from making progress. Any suggestions please? I do not want to stop using FamilySearch but do not see any other option right now. Best wishes, David Jones.
Comentários
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David
Your comment is a very familiar one. If you search Community you will find many questions on a similar vein.
The issue hits what is, at the same time, the greatest strength and the greatest weakness of FS. It is a communal tree - it is not yours or mine. You usually do not have to go back more than two or three generations before you will find ancestors who are also the ancestors of other family historians using FS. Whilst there are many people who are careful with changes made, sometimes errors are made. Equally there are too many people who are totally careless with what they add to the tree and will often feel deeply insulted if you suggest they have got it wrong!
I suggest you try contacting the person who has added the incorrect entry explaining why you consider it to be incorrect. Hopefully you can reach the right conclusion.
If you are still stuck, come back here posting details of the situation including the ID numbers and it can be reviewed further.
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Further to Graham's helpful explanation, to remove this person from a relationship with his/her parents, click on the pencil icon alongside their name, then (against the Child's name) on Remove or Replace. Assuming you don't know the correct set of parents for that individual, check the "I have reviewed the relationships, sources, and notes for these individuals" statement, then "Remove Parents". Provide a reason statement (e.g. "Have evidence not part of this family"), then click on "Remove" and they will disappear from the list of the couple's children.
You have to expect this type of action (usually from inexperienced users) on a regular basis when using an open-edit product like Family Tree.
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This type of thing is not unusual, especially since all may contribute as Graham pointed out, and not everyone is at the same skill level, as Paul mentioned. Add to that the fact that some research help hints are not correct and may have been taken at face value instead of examined carefully first. I try to assume that an honest mistake has been made. Since I often run into these situations, here is how I handle them.
I carefully research the incorrect person and create his/her correct family with sources. Then I remove the incorrect attachment, explaining the error. Often, I do contact the contributor, but not until I have done the research myself, so as to give them the correct direction before depriving them of the wrong one. This way I avoid the confrontation of opinions, the facts speak for themselves.
In the past, I have tried to contact the contributor to ask for collaboration. Too often, no answer was forthcoming, and I found that I needed a special spreadsheet to keep track of the requests and the people involved in the tree. Since I research for multiple people, it quickly became overwhelming.
Some of the errors may be very complex, sometimes combining several similar families into one. They can take 8-10 hours or even days to untangle properly.
It is good to reflect that we are trying to produce the most correct record we can and hopefully helping each other do just that. I believe the benefits of having a common tree and cooperate with each other is invaluable. My own research has benefitted from so many other contributors.
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