My Revolving Door Ancestor: Francis Cooke

 

Plymouth Rock defaced with spray paint

https://turnto10.com/news/local/plymouth-rock-defaced-with-spray-paint 

When someone defaces a historical artifact or monument such as the famous Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, Massachusetts, it makes the news but day by day, week by week, for years people have been changing, essentially defacing, the settled historical information about the Mayflower passenger Francis Cooke and no one who could prevent the online graffiti altogether has done anything to prevent it. This paticular damage is being done to an entry in the FamilySearch.org Family Tree. 

Francis Cooke (b. about 1583, d. 1663) ID #LZ2F-MM7. This is another instance where the number of unsupported changes, to this person, are overwhelming. I would venture to guess from trying to scroll through the unending list of changes, that his record has been changed almost every day, day in and day out, since the day he appeared in the Family Tree around 2012. I am again guessing that there have been over 5,000 changes made or about 2 to 3 a day for ten years. This is a mammoth waste of time and duplication of effort. This would be a serious issue if it was isolated to this one individual, but there are thousands, perhaps millions, of individuals who are changing more or less at the same rate. Think of the benefit of people were actually doing productive work instead of the equivalent of graffiti.

I suppose I need to give some reason why the changes are not necessary or appropriate. The main reason is this book. 

Wood, Ralph V., and Lucy Mary Kellogg. 2015. Mayflower families through five generations: descendants of the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth, Mass., December 1620. Vol. 12 family of Francis Cooke.

This book contains almost all we know about Francis Cooke. There is no need for even one change unless someone has done more research than the Mayflower Society. 

Concerning this subject, I get comments like this regularly:

Any web-based platform, whether Facebook, Twitter, or the FamilySearch Tree, without a means of vetting contributors, is likely to be overrun with uninformed, inaccurate, and in some cases absolutely malicious postings. I contributed to the FamilySearch Tree when it first became possible to link from Legacy Family Tree software. A few months later, a cousin (now deceased) made a number of ridiculous, and un-sourced, changes to the information that I had shared. I no longer even look at the FamilySearch Tree. Why bother?

I also get comments like these:

Only you James Tanner can do such a thorough job of illustrating the major issue with the FamilySearch tree. Thank you again for raising the concern. Many of us who work with the FS tree or counsel others have grave concerns that the accuracy of the FS tree may be in fact declining instead of improving. A statistical spot audit might help determine the changing accuracy of the tree. Somehow our overall level of confidence in the tree needs to increase in order for the original version of the FS tree to be realized. 

I agree and wish that there was something we could do to help solve the problem but so far I have had no success. I also do very little updating to FamilySearch. I do still use the site because some of the entries are well sourced and a good place to get started.

I see 2 potential contributory causes. (1) I'm reluctant to say it but some part of FS Management values participation over accuracy. (2) Some FS contributors are doing this because they are not interested in genealogy but they regard the basic entries as the end product.  

Over the years, I have participated in an ongoing dialogue over ways that both the goal of general participation and accuracy could be achieved, however, I have yet to hear about any meaningful efforts at the resolution of this issue.