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| Pilgrim Memorial State Park in Plymouth, Massachusetts |
There are currently 188 people watching Francis Cooke LZ2F-MM7 and 544 past contributors. How many of them do you think agree on every detail of his life and his family? Once you have taken on a project to work with a "Revolving Door" ancestor or family, you probably will want to check your FamilySearch Family Tree messages and look at any particularly "changeable" ancestors more frequently than once a week. Getting upset or mad about the changes is nonproductive. Anyway, before you get mad, you should make absolutely sure that anything you do is supported by sources (in the plural) and makes sense. Make use of the Recents menu on the Family Tree to quickly review any changes. If you made the last change, then your name should be at the top of the list of Latest Changes.
Here is an example of a weekly report.
As you can see from the heading, this report includes changes to 15 people and has a total of 74 changes. As I pointed out previously with an early report, Most of those changes pertain to one individual, in my case, Francis Cooke LZ2F-MM7.
You can review a report like this in just a few minutes if you don't have a Revolving Door ancestor (or more) on the list. In the case of Francis Cooke, the changes can be fairly complex. I am guessing but after reviewing thousands of changes over the years, I believe that only about 10% or less have a supporting source. The most frequent changes almost never have a source listed supporting the change. This particular list took me just a few minutes to review. Except for Francis Cooke, the rest of the changes were adding sources or similar activities.
If those people who were correcting the incorrect changes would have taken one more step, then the number of changes would have gone down by now. As I have noted in previous posts. it is important to explain to the person making the wrong change why their change was wrong. Usually, a short answer is not enough. I compile a set of "standard" responses to the most common changes and have them in a program or file that I can access easily. I copy the response and use it as the reason for me changing the error and also send a copy of the reason to the person who made the improper change. I only very occasionally get any response back but I notice that the person seldom makes the same change again.
What about those people out there who are certain that their information is correct and continue to change it back? I have found the sending longer and longer explanations usually helps but sometimes you just have to last them out and keep correcting the entry until they get tired of the process. I never get tired of the process. With an ancestor such as Francis Cooke, you cannot expect to see any results from your efforts for months or even years of work. But slowly, the old PAF files and GEDCOM files are exhausted and no one has anymore basis for taking an interest in your and their ancestor.
It certainly helps if there are other relatives who are willing to assist in the process but don't count on that happening. If you do find someone correcting bad entries and supporting changes with valid sources, it is a good idea to send them a thank you note.
It is extremely important that you do all the research and know more than you think is even reasonable about the people you support in this way. Don't be part of the problem. By the way, do not ever use a Mayflower Society Application as a supporting source for a change. Always go to original contemporary, if possible, sources.
See previous posts
Introduction: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2020/06/popularity-on-familysearch-family-tree.html
Part One: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2020/06/beginning-mayflower-quest-evaluating.html
Part Two: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2020/06/beginning-mayflower-quest-part-two.html
Part Three: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2020/07/beginning-mayflower-quest-part-three.html
Part Four: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2020/07/beginning-mayflower-quest-part-fourth.html
Part Five: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2020/07/beginning-mayflower-quest-part-five.html
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