An Analysis of the Weekly Change Reports for the FamilySearch Family Tree: Week One

I watch 301 people in the FamilySearch.org Family Tree. Every week I get a report from FamilySearch itemizing all of the changes to all of the people I am watching. This week's report had 111 changes to 14 people. I decided to examine each change and categorize the changes especially looking for changes made without supporting source citations. I created a spreadsheet listing all of the 14 people and giving the total number of changes to each person and then an analysis of the type of change and whether or not the changes were supported or unsupported by sources or explanations.

I plan to continue adding names to the spreadsheet for a few weeks to see how many of the changes focus on a single individual and, overall, how many actually have some supporting sources. Here are my categories:

• Name
• ID #
• Number of Consequential Changes
• Number Supported by Sources
• Unsupported
• Inconsequential

I consider Inconsequential changes to be adding a source, memory, or photo. Anything else that changes the data for the person is a consequential change. If there are sources, there should be a source entered at the time of the change by the person making the change. Some of the changes involve removing a person or date or place just added, but all of these are counted as changes.

Here is the list for this week. I intend for this to be cumulative so the number of people will go up along with the number of changes.

Week One

Hmm. A little over 94% of the changes were made without adding a source and almost without exception without a reason for making the change.

As I go along with this study, I will be making more comments about the changes. But right now it looks like the preponderance of changes to the Family Tree are being made without supporting sources, perhaps it is now time to add a feature requiring a written explanation for changes with a source?