Family Search activity

[Gillg]

Family Search seems to have become rather active recently and has been contacting me with various offers of assistance, for instance today it offered me the opportunity to view and print out my Pedigree Chart.  This is something quite new and there was information on the chart which I have no recollection of ever entering on the site, however, it is mostly correct, apart from details of my paternal great-grandmother.  Based in all likelihood on the 1881 or 1891 census, when my grandmother was living with her mother's sister following the death of her own mother, the chart shows the aunt's details in the section giving the parents of my grandmother.  It has quite correct details of the birth and death of this aunt, too, and those of her husband.  I am rather surprised, but don't know how to correct this error, because I don't know where the information was first entered.

[Zacktyr]

Hi Gillg,

First, let me say that I am a non-member (non-LDS) volunteer librarian at our local Family Search Centre (since 1983) and am very familiar with what and how Family Search is gaining the information that they input into their email offerings.

That information was drawn from the One World Tree that is being generated by tens of thousands of amateur genealogists that contribute to FamilySearch.  It is open to anyone and the accuracy of the data that comes in the emails is solely reliant on those contributors getting it right.

If you have found an error, the only thing you can do is, if you have not already, sign up for a free account on FamilySearch.org and go into the tree and change the information. 

I stopped contributing to my 'family tree' when FamilySearch turned access over to everyone and anyone and rebranded the individual family trees as the One World Tree.  I got very tired of correcting everyone else's mistakes in my personal family information.

[Erato]

I use FamilySearch often, but I don't keep my tree online there (or anywhere else).   Of course, huge parts of my tree have been incorporated into the FS One World Tree by other people, and for the most part the information is correct.  I have seen some errors, though.  I don't try to correct them but, rather, just attach a note with my information and sources.  No one has ever responded to my annotations.

[Zaphod99]

Erato, I don't understand how your tree can be incorporated if it is not available online anywhere.

Mrs Zaph

[aghadowey]

Perhaps Erato means that some of their family is included on other trees which have been submitted by other people. I don't have an online tree either* yet many of my relatives are on those trees.

* actually that's not strictly true. I have a very small tree on Ancestry with two people- my aunt and uncle (long story but there is a reason for this) and it's absolutely amazing how often said couple appear on other trees (often with completely wrong information). I've even had people contacting me claiming to either be descendants or know of descendants. Considering she was 50 when they got married and he was a sprightly 75 it's  not surprising that they actually did not have any children.

[Gillg]

I am still intrigued by the information and errors on the Family Tree supplied on the Family Search website for me.  To begin with, it has me on the tree with my full correct birthday but no birthplace, however my name there is entered simply as the shortened everyday name by which I am known to friends and acquaintances.  This is surprising, because on all official documents and records I am shown with my first name, a name which I have never used all my life, preferring my second name, one which can be and often is shortened to the name as entered on the FS tree.  Where did that shortened version come from and who gave it to them, I wonder?

Then there is the matter I mentioned earlier of my grandmother being given the names of her aunt and uncle as her parents, her own mother having died young and her aunt (her mother's sister) having brought her up.  On some of the older entries there are just years of birth, marriage and death given, but on others, such as the aunt and uncle, there are full dates given for all these with places given as well. 

There must have been some gathering of information from various sources drawn together, by  some computer programme no doubt, to compile FS's family tree, because I have never entered a family tree on their site.  The only online family tree I have is on Genes Reunited, a tree which supposedly can only been seen by persons who ask for and are given permission by me to view it.  But then I appear on the GR tree by my first name and not the name FS has used.  I don't belong to Ancestry,  Find my Past or My Heritage either.  I suppose I have to thank the World Family Tree for the information, correct and incorrect, being available to the world.

[aghadowey]

My mother and her two surviving sisters appeared on Family Search as 'deceased' with no date of death. They are all still alive (ages 98, 94, 92) and the person who submitted the details (my second cousin) knew full well they were not deceased but I think wanted a complete family listing. I contacted Family Search and within a very short time they removed their details from the tree.

[Gillg]

Thanks, aghadowey.  I have sent an email off to Family Search with my comments and await their response.

[Zacktyr]

FamilySearch will remove details of the living but they will not interfere with any other incorrect information.  That is left up to the person who wishes to have it edited.

With a free account on FamilySearch one can see who submitted the information on any detail of the tree.  Gillg if you PM me with the details I can have a look at who provided the information for you.  Also, the family group with the aunt and uncle showing as parents I can only surmise was submitted by someone who didn't know that the child wasn't their biological child.  One doesn't have to be a relative to contribute any information to the tree.  It could have been an overzealous neighbour or acquaintance who may or may not have been a member of the LDS church.

Also, FamilySearch and Ancestry have a very long-standing and deeply complicated and initimate relationship.  One pulls tree information from the other for publication and vice versa but you will never see a source citation stating this.  And one forestalls publishing records for an agreed upon time limit if those records have been offered to the other for publication.