Hi Kirt. I'm sorry if I was not clear. The result of my using the app was that many of my profiles had a lot of unsourced data, which isn't a good thing. As I may have mentioned, many FamilySearch profiles are unsourced. I've seen whole families with dates and locations but zero records attached. Where did these dates and locations come from? I can assume that someone did some research at some point and everything is hunky-dory, but that would be irresponsible. From what I've read, there is a lot of nonsense on sites such as Ancestry and FamilySearch (I mean the trees, not the records). One of the good things about WikiTree is that people believe that we can build a good tree here, without the mistakes that are found elsewhere. The way to do this is to check the sources as best we can and not blindly copy what people tell us is true, which is what you do when you import data from FamilySearch without checking the sources/records first. So what I had to (have to) fix was (is) the sourcing. I need to find records that back up the facts that I've stated in the profile. Sometimes, I can find them, but sometimes, I can't. There are lots of people sourcing unsourced profiles on WikiTree who can tell you the same thing. Sometimes, it turns out that the 'facts' were wrong. Yes, that happens a lot on WikiTree, but I would rather decrease the number of false 'facts' than increase them. It's also to do with trust, reliability, and perception. If people look at a WikiTree profile and they see that each fact on the page is backed up by some kind of citation, they will trust that profile, and by extension, the manager, and even the site, more. If they see a bunch of 'facts' and only a link to a FamilySearch/Ancestry/whatever profile, they won't judge that profile very favorably. They will see it as essentially unsourced, which is not a good thing.
Yes, on the merge page, you have the choice to accept or reject the proposed changes. What I was trying to tell you is that, as a beginner, I trusted what I was being given by FamilySearch, data which was being given to me via an app which was built into WikiTree. As I mentioned earlier, I'm not very smart... but I am able to learn, and I think I have learnt a few things in the last few years. I now see that I shouldn't have put blind faith in the data that was given, and that other researchers would like to know what records the data came from, which the citation for the FamilySearch profile doesn't give them. You can blame me for not knowing enough to check all of the records on FamilySearch (or if there were any) before importing the data, but, as I said, the app is integrated into the top menu of WikiTree with no explanation, so I trusted it. I think I'm not the only one, and I fear that you're trusting it too much now and encouraging others to do likewise.
I'm not talking about dates being a day or two out or a name having a slightly different spelling, by the way. These things are part of reading records - sometimes many different records - and trying to find what may be the truth. The ocean waves don't enter into it.
You mention dates that a manager marks as 'certain'. I wasn't really thinking of that. When I used the app, I was looking for data that I didn't have, not really looking to change what I had. So if I had birth details, I was looking for death details.
FamilySearch Matches is a useful tool, but I wish I had known more about what I was doing and not just trusted everything I saw when I was using it. I think the danger is that there are many others like me who may not realise what they're doing and WikiTree will end up with a bunch more essentially unsourced profiles.
I hope that helps.
