Are 'smart matches' damaging the integrity of family trees?

[abstraction]

Recently I came across a very large number of family trees connected to my own family with completely incorrect data. I couldn't understand how so many people could get the details wrong unless they were copying without checking the sources. I then found that most of them had one thing in common - they were on My Heritage. I realised there is no way of contacting these people without joining - so I signed up for free, but can't do much without paying. Why would i pay an organisation that appears to take no responsibility for validity of the content they offer? Since then I have received almost daily 'smart matches' offered to me with erroneous data. And they've taken over Legacy Family Tree software and I get similar 'smart matches' on the software - either from someone else's tree or today even a newspaper account with the same name from someone on a completely different continent. Goodness, today they tried to tell me twice that my own grandmother had completely different parents.

I don't know what their algorithm is based on but it appears to be wiki. But I know how corporations work. They are using 'matches' and data as an aggressive marketing ploy (with . But they appear to take no responsibility for the veracity of what they are selling. I would suggest the ordinary person paying c.$30 Australian would believe these smart matches are accurate. That they are smart. They aren't. I would suggest that these people are being (unintentionally) misled - but at great profit. You can draw your own conclusion.

Family history requires sound historical principles, with evidence and discipline. Not simply offering copies of other people's shoddy mistakes, en masse. I'm very happy for someone from that big company to explain anything they think I have said is incorrect.

All I know is that there is more bogus data related to my family tree now in circulation because of the complete lack of discipline in their approach.

[Caroline]

I am sure we all have tales to tell of mangled trees but even if we are 100% sure of our own, there is not a lot we can do about other people mass copying. All we can do is hope ours is the correct version and maybe contact the others. On the other hand I've had to contact somebody who was very, very wrong about my immediate family but they would not change it as they were equally as sure that they were correct.

I had a speculative ancestor on my tree with a note in the notes to say why but at least that has been copied with the same number of question marks in the name, Sarah (Possibly Diggens?????), but often without the note. I've since disproved it but can only hope they check back one day .....

Smart matches are just hints for us to use to check. Making our trees public will hopefully help correct information too.

[Olde Crone Holden]

I used to get very het up about this but no longer. My own tree is as accurate as I can make it by doing proper, original research. It is not online. I do have a much edited tree on line which is there purely as a fishing rod to attract contacts to the brick walls on my tree. It rarely hooks anything worth having.

To be fair though - no tree hosting company can guarantee the integrity of any tree on their site. How could they possibly check?

Caveat emptor applies here just as it does anywhere else in life.

OC

[PhotoFamily]

Tree inaccuracies, and the copying and propagating of them, is so annoying, but nothing new. Someone took some research on one of my ancestors done decades ago, put some constructs on it (in correctly), and now there are many trees out there with the info, and staunchly defended by many.

If you want to have a public tree, have you considered WikiTree? It is another one-tree project. They say they will help mediate disputed trees if the genealogists can't resolve the differences themselves.

[Sylvia C]

I have not trusted other people's trees on any site for many years, unless it is documented by reference to sources that I can find, or by them adding the certificate, will, etc.

I will use other people's trees as an idea to follow up if I am trying to find someone on my tree and have run out of all sources that I know about. That way I occasionally find someone who migrated to S. America or even changed their name!! But I do have to find the proof of that myself.

I've had too many "matches" from various sites to even bother looking at them.