An End of the Year Look at the FamilySearch Family Tree

The end of any year is a time for reflection and introspection. During the past years, there have been seemingly only cosmetic changes to the FamilySearch.org Family Tree. But some of those changes have affected the workflow and caused users to modify the way they have been working with the Family Tree. However, all in all, the fundamental issues facing the users of the Family Tree have remained the same. Here is a recent example.

Most of these changes have a neutral impact, but there are certain individuals that show up with every email from FamilySearch showing the weekly changes. Here is an example.

Francis Cooke was a passenger on the Mayflower. He is the subject of an entire book published by the General Society of Mayflower Descendants (Mayflower Society). Here is a citation to that book.

Wakefield, Robert S., and Ralph V. Wood. 2000. Francis Cooke of the Mayflower and his descendants for four generations. Plymouth, MA (4 Winslow St., Plymouth 02360): General Society of Mayflower Descendants.

Every date, place, and name in that book has been exhaustively documented with extensive source citations. What is known and what is not known about Francis Cooke is not presently in dispute. The information in the book has been updated to five generations. See the following:

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.

With all that information, you would think that this one entry would be long ago settled and no longer a source of constant change. You would be wrong. Is the problem with the Family Tree? The answer is yes and no. Obviously, any changes have to be made by users of the program and allowing changes is a basic function of the Family Tree program. When will the weekly storm over Francis Cooke and others like him end?

This is the continuing challenge of the Family Tree that remained its most pressing and disturbing issue during the year 2018. Heretofore, I have refrained from getting involved in some of these issues. During the past year, we did take a stand on my remote ancestor, William Tanner, but that is a minor issue overall. My other New England lines are the real issue. The question is whether the current state of affairs on the Family Tree is supportive enough for me to begin tackling these outstanding New England issues? On the Mayflower line, the main change during the past year was the publication online of all of the current information from the General Society of Mayflower Descendants. Although I will have to pay for access, I am now in a position to take on the effort of cleaning up many of those New England lines.

From the perspective of another year of working with the FamilySearch.org Family Tree, I can say that the program is maturing in many ways. A sufficient number of sources have been added to individual entries to solidify them and overall changes to all but a few families have decreased and many of the residual changes involve standardization and adding additional sources. As I have quoted before attributed to President Harry S. Truman, "If you can't stand the heat, got out of the kitchen." Most of the changes are being made to people who lived back in the 18th and 17th Centuries. There is plenty of work that needs to be done on the Family Tree that does not involve these remote ancestral lines. I suggest that if you are disturbed by the changes, rather than challenged as I am, I suggest you focus on your immediate family back no more than six generations and ALL of their descendants. You should find that in this venue, there will be minimal changes except for one or two exceptional issues.

As I have been saying over and over, the FamilySearch.org Family Tree is the solution, not the problem.