An Analysis of the Weekly Change Reports for the FamilySearch Family Tree: Weeks Five and Six

For some reason, I stopped receiving my weekly reports from FamilySearch listing the changes to my Watch List so this summary will be significantly larger than the last one I highlighted. However, I can still get a list of the changes from the people I am watching by using the List generated by the FamilySearch program as you can see above.

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.

Here is the updated cumulative list of changes for the past two weeks. There were a total of 78 changes.

The percentage of unsupported changes was slightly down to 87%. But it looks like this is going to be a pretty average number of unsupported changes. I am still going to add in the dates for the people on the list, but I did not receive a mailing from FamilySearch for the last two weeks and so I had to play catch up with the list.

I am guessing that, over time, the number of unsupported changes to the Family Tree is going to be about what it is now at approximately 87%. What can be done to drive that number down? I suggest that requiring a written reason for any change will help. You can see from the list (click on the list to see it enlarged) that most of the changes are focused on a very small number of individuals. On this list, only five individuals had more than 10 changes and the five individuals' changes, with on exception, we all unsupported. So the issue of changes in the Family Tree could be greatly improved by requiring a source or reason for all changes. I suggest also adding a required reason statement such as "State why you are making this change." It would also help if a source for making a change was a required field.