How to get mentor intervention with someone not on Wikitree?

+7 votes
412 views
The issue that I am having involves someone from family search who claims she doesn't use wiki tree, but what she is doing is effecting my tree and research.  How do I deal with this?
in Genealogy Help by Living Bale G2G6 (7.9k points)

2 Answers

+8 votes
How can she affect your tree and research if she is not on Wikitree ?
by Guy Constantineau G2G6 Pilot (394k points)
Guy, I think what this person is doing is adding wrong information to FamilySearch tree or perhaps deleting correct information that they just happen to think is wrong

If I had to control what the others say about my family.... I would not have time to do anything. For years, I have been telling people about an error about my ancestor ... they have the wrong wife... but it nothing... no response.  I quit telling and mind my own tree with the right sources.

What is important is what YOU write and the sources to support your tree.

Ok, I'll dare to sound crazy, but here it goes... when I started on this tree, and YES I make errors and I love people to tell me when I do!  But when I started working on this line of my tree, it's not such a pleasant past two generations.  This lovely book was put together on this family and I used it to start working on it further.  I'm a person who has questions and have become a history freak because of it.   SO, I use her book and start from there and start to build on it.  The one question I came up with, was that my 2xGreat Grandparents don't seem to have ever married and found other reasons they might be using alias's.  And when did they change their names to Wilson?  My grandfather wanted me to help him before he died, and we hadn't any luck, so I thought I'd work on it in his memory.  So searching diligently, I asked; well what happened to my 2x grandfathers first wife.  She was only 17 at their marriage and he 27, so I started researching her and I found her, down in Indiana, by her married name with a very young daughter named Louise.  Well as you can imagine, I was surprised and wondered who is this Louise?  Really, three daughters named Louise.  So of I went, on a hunt. And when I bumped into a person looked to be coming up to his first wife, I contacted them asking if we could possibly be working the same person.  At first they were happy to find their grandmother.   They were not happy to hear from me the second time when I asked if it worked.  Claimed we were not related but they started to download my tree, all of it.  As Ancestry notifies you.  I didn't mind, but asked why, and got no answer.  But too, I think I found things they didn't like.  Realizing my error.  I locked this tree worked on it privately and when was confident I had it right, I opened it.  Then, they started changing things.  Just to change them, not to assist or help.  They took my grandmother's name and moved it elsewhere, stuff like that. So I locked it and left it and went on to other things.   When I went back a year or two later, to my private tree people and records were missing.  And when I tried to fix them, redo them, the records were not longer coming up.  I called Ancestry and they said no way could anyone do that.   Low and behold, the writer of the book I started with contacted me and asked me what I was doing.  She told me she had a friend who worked at the main library in Salt Lake.  If I needed help just let me know, she can do anything.   Well, I put it aside again. And downloaded the GED.com, purchased software and thought everything was there.  Which it was, until I quit ancestry.   The writer claimed to be surprised and said she didn't think anyone could do something like that and she hoped I didn't think she would be involved with such activity.  Which I did not.  But after paying huge bucks to Ancestry for years, I figured I needed to get off and learn Wikitree. Which was H-E-L-L.  And I'm still a newly.  I had over 100 trees to upload and I tried to source them all before I uploaded them.  At times, when Ancestry was having glitches with merges, things would double, and that was a mess when your doing 100 trees!  So I locked up trees, sourced them and uploaded as gedcoms.  And the ancestry stuff came, but unless you had an account it was useless to Wikitree folks.  I cried a lot and pulled out my hair.  But eventually got comfortable.  It was only in the last month or two that I dared to work with the match wiki to family search.  So knowing the sources already, went there.   I had to laugh, I had well over 100 pages with folks and lots of matches but was too afraid to click on them.  I'd admit they looked to be the same, looked them over and if there wasn't any sources, would unlink them.  But they stuck there like flies buzzing around my head.   One day, I dared to "update wiki tree" and surprise! There's all these sources that everyone can see!  I started getting thank yous!   And this encouraged me.  So then, at family search, I started working on my tree there and then I'd come back to Wiki tree and piece of cake.  But it was never ending.  I mean once I sourced someone, shouldn't I be allowed to go on?  LOL, so then I learned to remove myself as manager, and made a bunch of orphans.  Even in my own line, thinking I would get them all cleared out and then just keep my direct line.  Dumb move I'm learning.  But as I started working on THAT tree, I'm getting emails and questions and then a long email with questions and demands that i change things because her church is saying she needs to bless or marry or whatever someone and that "there is not any more children associated with these people!"  She claims not to use Wikitree.  So I sent her links to my pages with the sources.  Problem is that some of the merges change when you link them, so I'm merging unmerging and trying to figure out why they won't accept spouses and children... instead of  looking at my sources and respsonding to them,  And that's when while I'm requesting help her the profiles came down. Then back up with unlinked sources.  I used a friends ancestry to check in on something, and I noticed changes in indexes or transcriptions.  Instead of a full name, initials, and for the life of me, a 1900 census won't come up.  I know the census can't be changed, but the transcriptions I think can. It would have to be someone with some major access to change a name or transcription so that no one would find it. Instead of Louise, make it Laura, it's so good that soundex isn't finding it.  I know how to do it the old fashioned way, go through line by line, but I've done that. I review the documents before i accept the transcriptions, often they are off, and sometimes Im lucky if I just turn a page or two.  But rather than take my sources and email me, she did not respond to what I sent her which was very extensive and time consuming.  And she is not accepting calls. I did call family search and they told me to keep trying her. They say that some folks get a bit territorial about their trees.  And, they also told me to go to a family center.  So I will give that a try, but I don't see how that will help.  I have asked her if there are things like adoptions or whatever that I should be sensitive about.  But adoptions are not public records and she didn't respond.  As of now, like many of you said, I should just go and re-do them, and I've tried.  But it won't let me. When i get on family search and  touch specific people, it freezes up or won't take the sources. I have hit a page that says I cannot proceed without being a LDS member or visiting a family center.  I was told by familysearch that there are records that are "owned" by specific people that are not open. Hmmm, I don't know what private records of hers that I would need.  And, the other thing, I had told her about a DNA match, and I told her it wasn't this tree, but my Gr. Grandmother's mother's line but I find later, that folks from that line are connected, somehow.  And I said a weird match came up but was instantly set to private.  It was the name Lively.  All of a sudden a marriage record pops up on family search.  I sent it to her and asked what it was?  Because the mother is not the one listed in the book.  She didn't respond.  So something happened that made that record pop up when it didn't before.   This isn't at all similar to any other trees I have worked on.  This doesn't happen ever except on this line.  I would love to have had her as a mentor, to work together.  Familysearch says to give her the benefit of the doubt and keep trying her.  Hmmmm
+10 votes
WikiTree is not responsible for what someone does on FamilySearch. If the person is not on WikiTree or causing problems here, you will need to deal with FamilySearch.

If this is about wrong info in a family tree on FamilySearch, there isn't anything anyone can or will do.

There are trees all over the internet that have my great grandfather married to his son's mother-in-law. It never happened. Someone made an error in a family tree, uploaded it with error to FamilySearch and the rest is history. I've given up trying to get people to correct it. "It's on the internet, it MUST be true!" grrrr

You just have to let it go.
by Deb Durham G2G Astronaut (1.1m points)
FamilySearch trees are full of garbage. I only look at them when I'm trying to figure out the origins of information that got copied into WikiTree from FamilySearch. All too often I find that the impossible-looking data comes from FamilySearch, where it exists in over 100 family trees. I'm not going to think about trying to fix those trees, but I can do my best to combat them by helping to put good, sourced data on WikiTree.

Ellen, it is the reason WikiTree got my attention in the first place. Yes, I know there is still garbage to deal with but the idea that I and others who care can deal with it, instead of just talking in the wind to those who prefer the fantasy to the reality, gives me hope. One profile per person means the correct doesn't get lost in a plethora of incorrect.

I spoke with familysearch and was encouraged to keep trying to come to some understanding with the person(s) involved.  I have sent an email and made a phone call and left a message.  We'll see how it goes.
I am happy to report, that we have been in email contact in brief and she is reviewing the resources I have sent her.  I conveyed to her I would like to work with her and look to her as a mentor.  Not a flea on her backside.  

I am thrilled that she is looking over rather than shutting out.

Thank you, and yes our tree's a mess on family search, but it's now open and we are leaving message.

Thank you all.
Great news!! Thanks for letting us know. (This just might encourage others of us to do likewise.)

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