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3 Reasons Not to Use the FamilySearch Family Tree

  • Writer: Devon Noel Lee
    Devon Noel Lee
  • Feb 3, 2020
  • 4 min read

Updated: Nov 7, 2024


FamilySearch Fan Chart with 3 reasons not to use FamilySearch

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.


  1. "The FamilySearch Family Tree is too tangled. "

  2. "My research is accurate. I don't want folks changing my tree."

  3. "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:

  1. How many persons have I personally exhaustively researched?  Or am I relying on others' research?

  2. 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?

  3. 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?

  1. American Patriots

  2. Mormon Pioneer

  3. Mayflower ancestors

  4. Early Colonial Americans

  5. 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:


And so much more. This blog has many more tips and tricks for using FamilySearch.


FAN chart on FamilySearch with overlay says "3 Reasons Not to Use FamilySearch"

32 comentarios


Michael Hill
Michael Hill
03 jul 2024

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.

Me gusta
Family History Fanatics
Family History Fanatics
17 oct 2024
Contestando a

I'm not sure what 'unofficial' records you're referring to. Genealogy research involves looking at any and all sources - original, derivative, and so forth.

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Becky Smith
Becky Smith
06 jun 2024

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.

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Family History Fanatics
Family History Fanatics
17 oct 2024
Contestando a

That's a valid research plan to be sure.

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Elwood Sweetapple
Elwood Sweetapple
24 sept 2023

Far from thee best place to put your tree. Too many people taking credit for other people's work.

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Family History Fanatics
Family History Fanatics
17 oct 2024
Contestando a

I think you'd be frustrated then to benefit from the research I conducted for 1,000 men from the Ohio 133rd Volunteer Infantry (and their wives) in the collaborative environment. I know something about them, but I'm not realted.

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Carlos Washington Mercado
Carlos Washington Mercado
03 jun 2023

Great article. Thanks you for running ths site!

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Family History Fanatics
Family History Fanatics
09 feb 2024
Contestando a

My Pleasure

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Ginny Virginia Haines Phillips
Ginny Virginia Haines Phillips
01 feb 2023

"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.

Me gusta
Family History Fanatics
Family History Fanatics
13 mar 2023
Contestando a

FamilySearch is free to users.

FamilySearch is a website where you can build a family tree. Granted it's a collective family tree, but still a place to build a family tree. Thus, I'm not lying, I just haven't clarified in the way you would prefer it to be typed. However, I appreciate your clarifying statements that it's a collaborative tree building platform.

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