I have reservations about "correct" / "incorrect" information. I know what records I have looked at, and their relative value for historic accuracy. I have seen other people's records that have different dates/places/names & additional children, but whose documentation is not as good/non-existant/or the nebulous "family records", and hence, in my mind, suspect as being incorrect. I would be very upset if someone who comes along and disputes some of my work that is verified by family Bibles, censuses, marriage records, church records, and anything else I can find that has some substance when their only source is a "family record" handed down from a great grandfather (who may have known or may have guessed.) Some people are very protective of their fairy tale genealogies and assume that theirs is right, no matter what kinds of documentary proof you provide. Or maybe their source is a printed family history. Unfortunately, the first one I ever saw with my family in it had the mother of the first listed generation wrong, so the entire book became suspect. And I always try to verify printed family histories as a result, though I know that some regard them with the kind of sanctity they give scriptures. Karen In a message dated 4/1/2009 4:08:46 P.M. Central Daylight Time, john@ohanasoftware.com writes: Disputes do not prevent the original submitter from correcting the data UNLESS the dispute is on a relationship. If you dispute an event such as birth or death, the original submitter can make the change. If the dispute is still showing after the change has been made, it simply means that there are more submitters who have submitted the same incorrect information. If all of the original incorrect submissions get changed, then the dispute does not show anymore. But it is still in the system. If someone subsequently comes along and adds the incorrect information again, the dispute will immediately reappear - thus letting the new submitter know that the information they just added is incorrect. Having said that, even disputes on regular events should not be the first step. I think the first step should be to try separating records. It is possible that the incorrect information is there because someone incorrectly combined records from two different people. Once you have separated any incorrectly combined records, if the error is still there the next step should be to attempt to contact the original submitter and discuss the data with them. Perhaps they have conflicting sources. Perhaps they will convince you that your data is incorrect. Perhaps both pieces of data are correct, given the source from which they came. Names are notorious for changing over time. We should not presume that because we have one "correct" spelling of our name that the same was true in the past. Historically spelling of names was not nearly as rigid as it is today. As a last resort, dispute the event. If the problem is a relationship, look again for incorrectly combined records, try to contact the submitter again, contact FamilySearch support, do anything you can to get it resolved. Finally, as a last last last resort, dispute the relationship, making sure to provide good contact information so that when someone comes forward to fix it they will be able to contact you and ask you to remove the dispute on the relationship. In my opinion, disputing relationships is a broken feature. But disputing events is well designed and very useful. Aloha, John ----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter" <Family.History.Research@shaw.ca> To: <lds-ward-consultant@rootsweb.com> Sent: Wednesday, April 01, 2009 5:00 AM Subject: Re: [LDS-WC] Disputes > At 09:48 PM 31/03/2009, you wrote: >>In my NFS class tonight, I discouraged the students from using the dispute >>mechanism giving them information about other ways to resolve their >>issues. I was asked when it would be appropriate to dispute an >>entry. What do you think is an appropriate time to dispute? >>Gay Davis > > Gay, > in my opinion you should not be using disputes at all. It will lock the > disputed event and or record and will prevent the person that submitted > the > info to make the correction if he/she agrees with you. > In all cases the first plan of action is to contact the submitter and > discuss the info. You might remember one record in your Holladay line had > 11 people putting a dispute on the same record. It turned out it was a > honest mistake where the person entering the information knew what she did > wrong, but didn't know how to remove it. > It took a lot of effort to contact all 11 disputers and get them to remove > their dispute before the mistake could be fixed. > > You might have noticed Family Tree does not have this function. Hopefully > it will not come back. > > If you see wrong information contact the contributor, otherwise leave the > information alone until a better way of adding a dispute can be found. > > Groetjes > Peter > > "I'm not 50 something. I'm 49.95 plus shipping and handling."' > > > Please send the one word message SUBSCRIBE or UNSUBSCRIBE to > LDS-WARD-CONSULTANT-L-REQUEST@ROOTSWEB.COM > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > LDS-WARD-CONSULTANT-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' > without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message Please send the one word message SUBSCRIBE or UNSUBSCRIBE to LDS-WARD-CONSULTANT-L-REQUEST@ROOTSWEB.COM ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to LDS-WARD-CONSULTANT-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message **************Worried about job security? Check out the 5 safest jobs in a recession. (http://jobs.aol.com/gallery/growing-job-industries?ncid=emlcntuscare00000003)