Family Search

Content on their site violates copyright and intellectual property laws, because members can scan and post material (current magazine articles, for example) no matter who wrote it or how recently it was written. My own work was scanned and put on their site, and I tried in vain to have Family Search remove it. Hours spent on the phone ended up with me being told I would have to track down the individual who illegally scanned and uploaded my work, to ask that person to take it down, rather than Family Search protecting themselves and upholding the rights of historians, authors, artists and researchers around the world by simply removing the article (plainly taken from a recent publication).

I was told by Family Search directly that anyone can post any article or info they want even if you have documentation to disprove it. Beware before making a tree! They don't warn you of this until you have an issue. And they will NOT allow you to remove your tree! Major flaws!

There is no other way to say it. LDS has rendered its family search site effectively useless with its new format. I used it with no trouble for a year before they "updated," meaning, created dead ends, links that don't work, columns that are hard to read., etc. If you tried to imagine a worse outcome, you would probably not be able. I would give it zero stars if I could.

This used to be a good place to find genealogical records, now it is useless, people can change your tree to whatever they want with no documentation of any kind you have members who are sealing records even though they are wrong. Tried searching my French Canadian family name with no results! How can that be since they lived there for close to 200 years!

Familysearch is run by the same silly people who operate FINDAGRAVE. If you enjoy bickering with non family members over great great great Aunt Tillie having 5 kids instead of 4 go for it. Some people r tuned into havoc and general foolishness.

Seems like FamilySearch does not care how accurate or truthful the information posted on their site is. Provided rebutting evidence from a superior court, certified county records and diocesan records refuting the illegitimate claims to no avail. Tried to delete information, but that one other individual keep reposting the false info. One of the entries could result in an illicit attempt to extort money from my parents' estate. Irony is we never posted anything on this site, it was disseminated from another site we had used. In short, be very careful about anything you post on the internet.

Well I will say this my whole family tree was ruined by some ignorant person with no actual proof took 12 generations down I even got a little angry and asked why do they allow these things to happen I got so sick and tried of people putting in false information about my grandmother I even filed a complaint and I got told I was acting inappropriately these people are idiots I have found accurate information off the TV show finding my roots look for a private genealogist your better off so much fraudulent records they can fly off I'm done deleted and freed

I began my tree years ago and all was well for a while. No longer so. As it's a public domain anyone can post on your Family Tree without support or evidence, and tell outright lies under assumed names. Case in point, an LDS member and vindictive divorcee of my brother, using bogus names posted inserted, changed, and lied about various deceased family members whom she had never known. She also sunk so low as to report as a Source, "I was at his funeral". The funeral of her 2 year old grandson. She was not, and all in attendance would state same. However, FamilySearch accepted this post.

My other complaint is "we found a new relative" emails I receive. Most if not all are totally false, being persons not at all related to my family. Yet accepted as gospel by FamilySearch. Trying to verify or delete via their so called Support is a total waste of time.

I've been to the Library in Salt Lake City. A wealth of information and worthwhile. But the FamilySearch function now stinks. I'm thru with it.

Not sure about anyone else but here's why I gave FS 1 star. This is from an old email I found recently.

Information about myself isn't even accurate and I can't search further back than my own father; making the entire website utterly useless.

FamilySearch is a fraud and should never be able to practice their crap. I only put in my name and my dads and wallah, my whole family tree was filled in right back to Adam and Eve within a day... bull$#*!! I have asked for my account to be deleted and still there and no response from them other than ask for my email to confirm deletion which I gave them, but they already had on the form I filled out for deletion. Steer clear of this site as it is total bull$#*!! I only gave it one star because I had no choice not to give any.

This site monitors your emails, photos posted and documents. EXPECT NO PRIVACY! They will delete! Sources provided contain errors. Their interpretation of the original document has errors. Their original document attached does not belong to the ancestor you are researching( someone unknown). This is a TERRIBLE PLACE to enter your loved ones names! REMEMBER FREE COMES WITH A COST! I AGREE TOTALLY WITH THE NEGATIVE REVIEWS!

I'd like to know if others have the same line as mine... 25 kings all the way back to Ireland year 20?

After entering my information, my mothers, and grands with photos, military information (my grandfather was a recon operator and POW in WWII)... the next day, every thing was gone. All of it, *poof*
Luckily, I took screen shots because I didn't trust the royalty lineage BS. I uploaded a very small selection of the photos I took, for others to compare. I'd be interested if anyone else has the exact same lineage

I really think after interacting with the "help" center (they wanted my phone #), that this is a recruitment tool for LDS.

SCAM!

I have put in my family members and had a nice tree started. Worked on it for days and many hours. One day someone came along and removed my family and inserted people I don't even know. I tried to fix it. I was frustrated and sent that person who kept changing everything messages about it. She replied to me and was very rude. I asked who her boss was. Never replied. I ended up sending a copy of what she said to me to the Family Research email. They have never replied. I find this site useless if you really want to see 'your' real family tree. I will add this, my mothers side of the family immigrated here and they use varied names. Example they would put something on the census that was not perhaps their legal names, etc. These people can't grasp that I guess. I fully enjoyed this endevour when I first started but not any more. I checked my account this morning and they have made no corrections. SO what's the point? If they decide who our families are it serves zero purpose.

The website does not accept the verification code it sent to me. I tried to use it within 5 minutes of receiving the message! No help whatsoever.

Worst genealogy site out there. Anyone can add, change, and delete your family tree information. Even if you delete your account all your family tree information stays just your access to your account is deleted. Because there are so many people doing whatever they want on that site the information is incorrect.

Why the hell is God listed as an ancestor? More ludicrously, why is the "Big Bang"? What is going on?

FamilySearch (FS) is a collaborative FREE Family-tree site, meaning we share one big tree, unlike other sites where you can create your private family tree, and can then share details with others with ZERO DRAMA, no histrionics.
PROBLEM on FamilySearch: Since it's free, it may attract the real power hungry crazies. I've run into 3 really nasty & very petty Wannabe POLICE of Genealogy, one's sent me 7 nasty messages, and has written nasty stuff all over my grandmother's page with a lot of bragging how she's a master genealogist, former High position in "Family History" in her last town, and tried to threaten me with her son is a programmer at FamilySearch, on & on. I NEED a BLOCK button for this person spamming me with hate mail, or vindictively vandalizing my relatives' pages.
The other Hilarity, is this site is not backed by DNA testing, so these folks are making petty fools of themselves without scientific evidence. In 5-yrs, a lot of the pointless squabbling will be replaced with new computing advances & DNA testing.
FS Interfaces for finding and adding information and documents are awkward and not very handy. It's a lot easier to use the OTHER sites to find and add the info, THEN upload it to Family Search--but this launches the few crazies into meltdowns, spamming and vandalism.
I've reported the abusive nutty behaviors to corporate, but NO RESPONSE.

I want to let everyone here know-this is not me. This is a person who stole my identity and is harssing people while pretending to be me. I just spent an hour with FS support, and had to listen to the support person explain to me over and aover and over that this didn't happen and I got frustrated because-just like always, calling for support is a big fail. The two women I spoke with just don't want to offer any sort of assistance> I'm reporting it to cyber crimes FBI. Second woman kept arguing with me, trying to explain how this is NOT possibly happening. I offered to send her the screenshot, she argued that it's not possible to create a screenshot of the webpage. She also told me NOT to send her the screenshot. She didn't want to see it She gave me a headache. I hung on on her when she wouldn't stop arguing. This began four years ago. It has taken away any pleasure I once had doing geneaology. This has been a constant for four years. Each time, it's reported, Family Search support claims it's not true

I entered all the information on my great Aunt and included a copy of her obituary! They allowed someone else to come along and change every thing! I had all their children entered their children. It is all gone! I spent a long time entering this information just to have someone else come along and delete it. I am done with the site! Why bother to do a family tree when a stranger can change it all!

This may sound overly dramatic, but genealogy is my main hobby. I have spent (wasted) hundreds of hours entering things in FamilySearch. Did you know that when you attach documents or photographs, they become the property of FamilySearch? My mother's high school graduation photo now belongs to FamilySearch. They monitor your activities and LDS "volunteers" track you and "format" what you do, which means removing accurate information, including documents, because they have already "sealed" a person and they don't want any contradictory information showing up. Many of their "volunteers" (I'm referring to people working at the direction of FamilySearch, not everyday users) do not know the difference between towns and states, and interchange them. They also merge people because they have the same FIRST name. They do not know common nicknames. (I could go on and on.) Many of the LDS users are very rude and send you messages that a part of the "shared family tree" belongs to them and you cannot enter things--even when you have provable verification. This harassment is not only allowed, but reinforced by FamilySearch. They are constantly changing the "shared family tree" in accordance with "projects" they have going on, for example: I have 0% Native American DNA in my DNA tests, but in the last few months I have been given over 50 Native American ancestors in the 17th and 18th centuries. Many of my ancestors who came from Europe, with their names on ship passenger lists, and a continuous line of documentation after arriving in America, have "disappeared." There are several LDS members who send me harassing emails on a regular basis, even thought I have not worked on their part of the "shared tree" for over a year. FamilySearch has no sense of accuracy or reality, they are using you to do their work for them, then changing it to be they way they want it to fir their view of reality. Overnight, huge chunks of your family tree may disappear, but nothing shows up in the change log--they are just gone. If you call the help desk, the first question you are asked is about your religion. By the way, some of the glowing reviews here are written by FamilySearch staff--I recognize their grammatical errors and vocabulary. By all means use their collection of sources, but don't spend time actually constructing your family tree. Also be aware that many of the record "transcriptions" have no corresponding original record--they have been created to match information that has already been attached to someone. Don't invest any time building anything on this site, and double-check all records that you find!

I have been in this site for years they allow you free searches unless ancestry. All of a sudden I'm getting things like your great grandmother was born etc now I go and look at my tree and there Are people added to MY tree and they are not my family. So I write them and as it turns out they let other people add to your tree and they think it's fine. It's not fine especially if it's the wrong information. I think I know my own family and when I tried to delete or change the wrong info it wouldn't let me! I will never deal with them again. It should be up to me if I want to allow that or not. It really got me upset with them. So be careful should this happen to you.

WHAT HAPPENED TO FREE ACCESS to the records
Now we have to join Ancestry to get access to something that was free?
I refused to do it, if others refused maybe it would influence Family Search to cut the cord,
And they would out rank Ancestry!
Until this happens MY FAMILY TREE HAS DIED