The Irony of the FamilySearch Family Tree

 

One of the definitions of irony is a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects. One might expect that the FamilySearch.org Family Tree was an attempt at "book containing the records of our dead, which shall be worthy of all acceptation." (See D&C 128:22, 24). However, the irony of the FamilySearch.org Family Tree is that it has be become, for some, more like a battle against inaccurate information that is almost always unsupported by historical records. In some cases, those who are trying to correct the inaccuracies and maintain the integrity of the Family Tree are attacked with personal insults, and in some cases, threats and profanity. Until quite recently, there were Feedback links on the Family Tree allowing users to try to get the attention of FamilySearch for such behavior. These links disappeared and any comments now go the the Community section of the Family Tree, where the complaints are largely, apparently, ignored. The main attitude is that the most persistent contributor (user) wins. See this string of comments on the Community: "How is a dispute settled when individuals cannot agree upon whose family tree a person belongs to?" The "solution" seems to be to put your information on another family tree such as Ancestry.com. In short, abandon the Family Tree and do your genealogical research on another family tree program. 

Now, I have said and written over and over again that the problem with the Family Tree is not with the program itself, but with the data and the users. I still take this position. But we are now at a crossroads as far as the integrity of the Family Tree is concerned. The following will show exactly what I mean by this statement. 

Let's start with Francis Cooke LZ2F-MM7, a passenger on the Mayflower who arrived in America on 11 November 1620. Beginning in 1897, the General Society of Mayflower Descendants began systematically research the genealogy of each of the Mayflower passengers. This information is available in the form of a 22 volume set of books referred to as the "Silver Books" because of the color of their covers. Here is a citation to the Silver Book for Francis Cooke.

Wood, Ralph V, Lucy Mary Kellogg, and General Society of Mayflower Descendants in the State of Massachusetts. Mayflower Families through Five Generations: Descendants of the Pilgrims Who Landed at Plymouth, Mass., December 1620. Vol. 12 Family of Francis Cooke, 2015.

What is known about Francis Cooke and his descendants is clearly set forth in this book. In addition, the New England Historic Genealogy Society (NGHGS) is in the process of digitizing and indexing the entire set of books. Here is the quote from the NEHGS website. 

General Society of Mayflower Descendants (GSMD) has published the very well-known series of books; Mayflower Families Through Five Generations: Descendants of the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth, Mass., December 1620, which documents the descendants of the Pilgrims. Also known as the “Silver Books” this series provides separate volumes for each of these founding families. Through a partnership with GSMD, AmericanAncestors has delivered this database with a full index of the fifth-generation descendants and their children, coupled with the page images for those people. The volumes in this collection are aligned with the volume numbers of the original series of books. 

Here is the citation to the Mayflower Society collection on NEHGS.

Mayflower Families Fifth Generation Descendants, 1700-1880. (Online database: AmericanAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2017). From Mayflower Families Through Five Generations: Descendants of the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth, Mass., December 1620. Plymouth, MA: General Society of Mayflower Descendants, 1975-2015. 

Now, guess what? The content of the Mayflower Society Silver Books is on FamilySearch.org. Yes, really, it is right there for anyone to research. In case you didn't know this, here is a screenshot of the collection in the Genealogies section of the website. 

Now, what is the issue. Here is another screenshot showing the changes in the Family Tree for one week. 

Normally, the number of changes would be well over 100 but this was for Christmas week. If you look closely you can see these changes to the Mayflower passengers and their families and the numbers.

Here is the entry for Francis Cooke in the Genealogies section of FamilySearch.

None of these changes need to be happening. As a result, someone who knows what is in the Silver Books and readily available online has to go in and make corrections. This week there are only about 48 things that need attention. In most weeks the number is over 100. Now think of all the time that is being wasted on making corrections to families that have gold standard sources and where the information cannot possibly be in dispute at this level. If you want to change what is in a Silver Book you can with extraordinary research into original records but it doesn't happen very often. 

Think of all the time that is being wasted by these frivolous changes. But then multiply that by the thousands of frivolous changes going on every day. I have personally seen huge numbers of sources simply deleted by someone who didn't want to read through them and thought they could tidy up the tree. My family members have been attacked and libeled by other users who insist on deleting all the sources for a whole family line.consisting of hundreds of sources. We can't do everything, we are hopelessly outnumbered. 

What is the response from FamilySearch? Essentially, that they cannot come up with a solution and that the real problem lies with the people trying to add valid sources. I watch or follow 400 people on the Family Tree and I see well over 100 changes a week. I go through each name where there are changes and either I or one of my daughters usually correct any inaccurate or spurious information with an explanation and a plea to look at the sources. We do this over and over again to the same people in some family lines. I stopped complaining to FamilySearch years ago. I just spend my time cleaning up the problems such as adding a baby born in England to a family that lived their entire lives in Northern Arizona. 

FamilySearch seems caught between trying to make the Family Tree available to users at all levels and the issue of how to keep the Family Tree intact and accurate. So far, they have resisted any suggestions that would help to stop rampant destruction. 

Now, what is our response. We will quietly (or not so quietly in my case) continue to work on the Family Tree. We will back up our work on another family tree so we can keep up with the changes. We will continue to waste time and effort correcting changes that are made for whatever reason. We will certainly look at any sources that are added and are anxious to become involved in any reasonable discussion over the content. We will also keep adding sourced entries into the Family Tree and pray that they remain intact. 

Perhaps, during the coming year of a worldwide pandemic, we can use some of the time we would be doing other things to focus on learning how to preserve the FamilySearch.org Family Tree from chaos. 

Our family (me and my daughters) have evolved a way to address the constant changes and in many cases we have stopped them from happening but we cannot be everywhere and we cannot follow every person in our family. My recent experience with one of my daughters as she watched a troll destroy years of source supported work on one family line and then respond to her attempt at stopping the damage with profanity and libel is at the core of the problem. He complaints to FamilySearch come back with suggestions that she be more careful in what she adds to the Family Tree and ignore any response to the actions of the person making the changes. Here is a quote from the response my daughter received from FamilySearch.

When disputes or confusion occur, it is important that the information is clear and available to all parties involved so they may review, together, and determine the correct information for the person in the tree. Unfortunately, some individuals do not put in sources or other information to present to other users why some data is not about the specific individual or why the new data is not relevant. We have found that more communication and more information on the person can help significantly in educating each other.

In this case we tried communication and education. We will continue to do so. I am only concerned that other users (patrons, guests etc.) are not as stubborn and persistent as we are and when confronted with this type of problem, they just give up trying to use the Family Tree. By the way, I have seen a number of seasoned, professional level genealogists who refuse to look at the Family Tree for these reasons.