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3 Reasons Not to Use the FamilySearch Family Tree
- Devon Noel Lee
- Feb 3, 2020
- 4 min read
Updated: Nov 7, 2024
FamilySearch is a free tree-building website with billions of freely accessible genealogy records. Despite these advantages, here are three reasons you may not want to use the FamilySearch Family Tree in your research.
Why You Should Not Use FamilySearch.org
Three common complaints by users of the FamilySearch family tree appear below. If you say any of the following, don't use FamilySearch.
"The FamilySearch Family Tree is too tangled. "
"My research is accurate. I don't want folks changing my tree."
"I can't upload my Gedcom file."
Let me explain the complaints and why you won't enjoy FamilySearch if you agree.
“The Family Tree is Wrong.”
Since 2012, casual FamilySearch users have complained that the family tree has wrong information. They don't want to invest the time and effort to improve the genealogical research that has accumulated over 100 years, and they feel they would be better off creating their own tree.
Are they right?
Experienced genealogists know that poorly created family trees have existed since genealogy began.
ou will find what I call "junk" in hand-drawn paper trees, printed books, and online trees. You have to critically evaluate every document and source before accepting it into your family tree.
No platform is immune to error, and every genealogist makes mistakes.
FamilySearch is an open edit platform, meaning anyone with an account can make changes to the tree. Users can work to untangle the knotted branches and share their research in a collaborative, user-friendly way.
However, if you're unwilling to contact other FamilySearch researchers, share your documentation and conclusions with them, and be patient, then consider using Ancestry, MyHeritage, or Findmypast to build your family tree.
However, if you're willing to work with others, you can fix the perpetual errors for future generations. Eventually, folks will work with one version of George Adams of Victor, Minnesota, rather than 100+ versions, with only 35% of those profiles being accurate.
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“My Research is Accurate. I Don’t Want Anyone Changing My Tree.”
Before you proclaim that your family tree research is accurate, answer the following questions:
How many persons have I personally exhaustively researched? Or am I relying on others' research?
Is anyone on my family tree who lacks all the evidence to prove every fact of their life? Does each fact have a source attached?
Am I humble enough to admit when I made a mistake?
You likely have a fairly accurate family tree if your tree is small. You could make mistakes for trees with thousands of names and not know them. If you're unwilling to admit to potential flaws in your research, don't use FamilySearch.
However, FamilySearch is a great platform if you admit to making mistakes.
Recently, I encountered someone who changed the FamilySearch Family Tree for my second great-grandmother, Caroline Mack, who married Joseph Geiszler and Michael Billman. The person who detached her from Joseph didn't realize that Caroline had married before she married Michael.
Following her research trail, I could easily understand how she made the mistake. When I shared the evidence that Caroline had a prior marriage, she was surprised and humble enough to admit her changes were incorrect. Admittedly, I felt a twinge of frustration with the changes, but we worked it out, and the woman learned something new about her ancestor.
Meanwhile, my Townley line had a mistake that I made.
Two brothers married a woman named Catherine M.!
(Why!?!?)
As a baby genealogist, I ‘married’ to the wrong Catherine to the wrong brother.
That wasn’t the worst of it.
Someone on FamilySearch eventually merged both Catherines into a third woman with the same name living in an entirely different part of the state.
The unrelated Catherine’s family historian contacted me and kindly indicated the errors in my research. *Gulp*
Together, we worked to sort out the three Catherines and 'remarried' them to the correct husbands.
Mistakes happen. If you disagree, perhaps the FamilySearch Family Tree will drive you insane.
“I Can’t Upload My Gedcom File.”
FamilySearch Family Tree aims to have ONE profile for everyone who ever lived. When you add a new person to the family tree, FamilySearch will check to see if that individual already appears in the database.
Therefore, you can’t rapidly upload your tree from another genealogy software program or online tree platform. You have to manually add new people or make changes to existing profiles.
Depending on your heritage, your ancestors are likely in the FamilySearch Family Tree database. Do you descend from any of the following?
American Patriots
Mormon Pioneer
Mayflower ancestors
Early Colonial Americans
United Empire Loyalists
Additionally, if you have a copy of a published family history prior to 1990, those family names are likely in the family tree as well. There is no reason to add your duplicate version of these individuals already in the common family tree.
The FamilySearch Family Tree already has millions of duplicate profiles that already need to be merged. They don't need your complete GEDcom file when less than 10% of your data is new.
If you want to keep uploading your tree without working with others, FamilySearch is not the platform for you.
Should You Avoid Using FamilySearch.org Entirely?
Actually, there are many reasons that you SHOULD use FamilySearch. Even if you're frustrated with the changes on FamilySearch, site-wide investigations have additional documentation and sources added to profiles on the family tree, things start to settle down.
You can still benefit from the resources if you refuse to use the FamilySearch Family Tree. You can:
Discover what other records you should research using the FamilySearch Wiki.
Use the online family tree to do Descendancy Research.
Use FamilySearch with Puzzilla to find research opportunities.
And so much more. This blog has many more tips and tricks for using FamilySearch.
I have painstakingly entered my family tree data, knowing that it is correct, to then have many of my records altered, so that, as a search engine Family Search is now, indeed a tangled mess.
I now use My Heritage and stick to official birth and death records and census reports to evaluate my data. I leave ‘unofficial’ records well alone.
I use family for a starting place. Then I do my research. Then I put my information in a stand alone program, I use Legacy Family Tree, and I don't allow familysearch or ancestry to add information to my tree. That way I'm responsible for my tree and any mistakes, or not, that I make.
Far from thee best place to put your tree. Too many people taking credit for other people's work.
Great article. Thanks you for running ths site!
"FamilySearch is a free genealogy tree building website"
Nope, not one bit. This is not what Family Search is and you do readers a disservice by lying to them.
Family Search is a single one world tree meant to connect all of humanity to each other. You don't build a tree on family search, you help build the world's tree.