How accurate is the FamilySearch Family Tree?

The FamilySearch.org Family Tree is still somewhat mired in controversy. The main issue is the accuracy of the content. I have written about this issue many times for the simple reason that the issue does not go away. Since I talk to people frequently about their own content in the Family Tree, the issue of changes made by other people comes up continually. I can find absolutely blatant errors in the Family Tree in a matter of seconds. I can do this with any one's portion of the Family Tree. The task of correcting all of this inaccurate information is monumental.

The issues with the Family Tree vary from trivial such as the standardization of dates to the ridiculous such as children born before their parents. Here is an example that took me less than a minute to find.

 in this case, Mary Hobbs is shown as born in 1691 and her mother is born in 1697. Unfortunately, a problem such as this cannot simply be resolved by changing dates especially when there are no sources and no substantiation for either date. From these entries, I can also easily see that the dates and places have not been standardized which is an instant indication that no one has done any recent research on this particular family. It is this kind of entry that gives the impression that the information in the Family Tree is inaccurate and not trustworthy. The real issue with the example above is that Mary Hobbs may not be a child in this family at all. Correcting this one error can easily take hours of research and in the end may not be able to be resolved at all.

The problem here is that users of the Family Tree see these errors and immediately assume that the Family Tree is unreliable. However, the unreliability of the Family Tree is not a problem with the program it is a problem with the data which has been entered by the users. As I have pointed out previously in many posts, the Family Tree reflects the accumulation of genealogical data over a period of 100 years or more. Much of this information was inaccurate, to begin with.

In my nearly constant examination of different parts of the Family Tree, while helping people with their own particular challenges, I generally find that the first few generations are reliably represented. Frequently, the entries need standardization but otherwise, the information is essentially accurate. When I say accurate, I mean that the information is substantiated by sources. Every once in a while, I do run across someone whose information in the first few generations is a disaster. But where I see that work has actually been done, the entries are usually reliable.

The Family Tree is still a work in progress. There will never be a time when it is not a work in progress. If we judge the reliability of the entire family tree on the basis of the fact that there are errors and inconsistencies in some of the data then we are losing sight of the real purpose of the entire program. None of us individually are perfect and we cannot expect the work done in the Family Tree to be perfect. The simple fact is that given that the information in the Family Tree has inaccuracies indicates that the information needs to be changed. Those users who constantly tell me that they wish that they could "freeze" the information in the Family Tree are basing their concept on an expectation of perfection. They believe their own work is perfect and that everyone else is wrong. Believe me, this is not the case. I am constantly finding and correcting my own mistakes. This is especially true with the work that I submitted to the predecessors of FamilySearch many years ago.

So far, our family, largely consisting of me and some of my children, have verified and sourced nearly all of the individuals back six generations. The only changes we see to this information from other users consists primarily of adding additional sources and memories. I am certain that there are other families doing exactly the same thing and as these islands of accuracy merge most of the information during the past 200 years will be as accurate as it could possibly be.

I will probably keep writing about this subject as long as I am able to do so. The tragedy of this whole process is that so few people are participating in correcting the information in the Family Tree and that so many people have the attitude that the Family Tree is unreliable and therefore not worth considering. I still think my weeds in the garden analogy is the most appropriate one. The Family Tree is like a large garden of genealogy. Just like in a real garden, weeds tend to grow. Every garden needs constant weeding. We are the tenders of the garden of the Family Tree. We need to keep the weeds out of the part that's already planted and growing and also reclaim the wild country on the outside edges of the garden.