• I see something incorrect in someone else's record.  How do I correct it?
• How do I login?
• How do I add a record?
• How do I edit an existing record?
• How do I add a source?
• I'm looking at someone else's record, but I don't see options to add relatives.
• What is your source for....?
• How do I know that something I see here is valid?
• How can I be related to all the famous people listed here?
• How can I download a gedom?
• Is the system for sale or distribution?

I see something incorrect in someone else's record.  How do I correct it?
The person responsible for the data you see is the moderator listed under the "Access" button on the left.  Once you have registered on the site and logged in, you will be able to see the full email address of the researchers, and then you can either email that person about the changes, or you can submit changes to be made directly on the site by clicking into a record, and submit "Suggestions".  Then it's up to the record's moderator to accept your changes.

The current moderator can also assign you as an additional moderator of this record(s) in question, and then you have freedom to change and add to those particular records as you like, all directly in the website.

How do I login?
Once registering, the site automatically logs you in, and saves a browser cookie on your system to remember who you are.  This cookie will automatically log you in upon returning.  You are logged in if you see a "welcome back" message at the top of the home page, or in the lower left of any person's detail page.  This cookie is removed if you choose to logout, but not if you just close the window.

If you are not logged in, a bright green login box appears instead, on the home page and in the lower left of a person's detail page.

How do I edit my existing record?
First do a search to find the existing person, and then either:

• click anywhere in the block containing their name or list of events
• click the "Edit Husband" or "Edit Wife" buttons on the left
• choose the menu item from the "Actions" menu
• use the "[" or "]" (square brackets) from the last name search box at the top of the page.
  
  

How do I add a source?
When adding or editing information, click the "Add / Pick Source" button, and then search for it in case you had already added it, and continue to add it if not found.  Read more and see an instructional video...

What is your source for....?
The source(s) for each person is located down the page for each person, in a seciton labeled "Sources".

How do I know that something I see here is valid?
This may be hard to answer as it's a fairly open-ended question.  First it depends on whose information is in question.  There many different researchers who have posted information here, and each may have their own standards as far as what's proven or verified, or what is a "work in progress".

Second, a lot depends on the timeframe.  We have on here ancestors ranging everywhere from "Adam and Eve" to the medieval period to the present day.  Each timeframe brings with it its own quesitons of what is verifiable and what is not.  Just because something may not be known to be historical fact, it doesn't mean it shouldn't be posted, or shouldn't be meaningful.  Just weigh each accordingly.

A few features of the stie also help with this:  Everyone who has dates is cross-checked with the dates of their relatives, and any conflicts are sent monthly to the researchers responsible.  They are also notified of any duplicates or potential duplicates.  Where possible most places are identified with latitude and longitude, and this points out to the researchers those that are not found, so that they may be corrected.

These features don't guarantee validity, but they go a long way towards encouraging it...  compared to other websites where you post your gedcom without any accountability.

How can I be related to all the famous people listed here?
If you go back only 20 generations, which would be around the 1400's, you would have in that one generation 1,048,576 ancestors (2 x 2 x 2... 20 times). Probably a little less, due to cousins marrying cousins, but around 1 million... and it doubles each generation before that... and each one of those could have many thousands to millions of descendants.

With numbers like this, the question is not "How can I be related to all these people?" but "How can I not be related to all these people?"

How can I download a gedcom?
This is not available, as this defeats several purposes of the site...

1) As I've browsed around the web researching my own family, I become very frustrated with the shear number of different places there are to find information.  So the time it takes to look through all of the sites, for all of your names, is virtually endless.  This is partially due to the model where researchers maintain their data on their local computer and upload -- then they tend to upload to many different places.

2) When people upload to many different places, they tend to neglect some or many of them over time.  The information becomes out-of-date, and even just plain wrong when mistakes are not corrected.  So my model, where you maintain the information directly online, and other people browse and read the exact same information eliminates this duplication.  As you make a correction and hit the save button, it's immediately updated for anyone who looks at it.  No other updating or uploading needed, and no one seeing your old information.

3) We have here many inter-linked trees from many different researchers.  A person that you have may (eventually) have parents entered by another researcher, and children by yet another.  While you maintain control and possession of your information, it's not really complete on its own.  It relies on the related information that other people may enter, and you won't have this if you copy your information elsewhere.

Is the system for sale or distribution?
No.  The website is setup for anyone from anywhere to be able to put in as much as they like, all free. You're even free to customize the colors and fonts as you like -- so in many ways it is like your own site. With this flexibility built into the one website, there is not a need to have it replicated to other websites.

In fact this would be contrary to one of the primary goals of encouraging everyone to work together contributing towards one common tree. If you look hard enough, we are all related... and so it makes sense to have us all in one tree, rather than having many different websites for separate families that are not really that separate.

I am constantly putting in system updates and enhancements where it makes sense for the larger community, and welcome any input you might have.

Updated: 2-3-2017