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Family Search Reviews

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Editor's Overall Rating:
Average User Rating:
(based on 18 reviews)

Category: Genealogy Sites (AKA Family Tree Websites)
Website: http://www.familysearch.org



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Useful if iffy connections. For a free site it's pretty good
24 September 2019
Reviewer: Actiasluna from Alexandria, VA

74 of 147 people found this review helpful

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I've not used Family Search for long, but noticed very quickly that I was able to enter my pretty well-researched famiily tree easily, and made a few possibly accurate discoveries.

However... I am also able to follow my family tree in unbroken chains to the following:
Charlemagne
Boudicea/Boudica (she's in there twice at least)
Catherine Howard (of Henry Tudor fame)
Kings and Queens and other royalty and nobility of every stripe (over the whole of the UK, Europe, into Turkey, etc)
Pre-Roman Britain
(I think you get the picture)

Several things are possible:
- My family IS actually full of historic figures (doubtful.. Some, maybe. More likely, not.)
- Some individuals intentionally tied relatives to royalty to make it seem true (possible, to likely)
- The site is rife with erroneous relationship links (possible... Some almost comical or "jokey" errors, like wife of some ancient guy in the 600-900s having a modern name and 1900s birthdate)
- There is a load of nonsense due to the site's "open source" collaboration (quite possible)
- The sites it pulls from have many duplicates and errors in lineages (also quite possible)

So... while it is entertaining to see who I can find at the end of each line, I wouldn't be inclined to take it very seriously. Also many of the census documents have poor transcriptions with many errors in interpretation (which may be common to all sites).

The caveat is find what proof you can before you presume the tree you get is accurate. Some of the historic stories also seem inaccurate.

I do like it despite the above - but it makes separating family from fiction a bit tricky.

In summary, I would recommend Family Search to a friend.



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