FamilySearch Reviews 

This site/app is amazing! Everything, and I mean everything is free! I love the Family History Activities because they will show you which famous people you are related to. I myself am *very* distantly related to one of the US presidents. The only downs are anybody can edit your tree and they could add someone that you are definitely not related to. However, this is the best free genealogy app that I have found. If you are questioning getting it, question no more! This is the best.😄

the best thing about familyseach is its shared tree and the worse thing its shared. tree! This means you get all the help of fellow tree builders. The later is more frequently helpful but you are at the mercy of their edits on the shared tree, the good, bad and dam right ugly! The bad reviews here are complaints of sharing and therefore losing ownership of your tree and its associated data.

My experience of above is predominately positive and considering its free that is is not bad at all.

Please note the shared tree is backed up by the biggest online set of online database. Usually most people part of the shared tree starts as family knowledge and then matures as firmer data by attaching online documents to back up the family knowledge to verified data. This works very well until the mid 1500s where these online documents such as birth, christening , marriage , death and burial documents finish and then the data becomes more speculative in terms of history books etc etc

The app could be considerably improved by aiding this process is instead of expecting the user to fit the app!

I have made a suggestion that each person background colour should be coded in the rainbow colours indicating how many of the vital key data points are back up with attached documents. Then other users would know not to edit {or only edit very carefully} those who have documents backing them up already.

Listen up people there needs to be a class action lawsuit against familysearch.org when I complained about them through consumer people because I tried to call them to get help and they didn't help me they sent their dogs after me in a letter form they're stupid attorneys that's what they did to the consumer that is profiling and discrimination something needs to be done big time do not trust them

In Aug. of 2014, it appears that Family Search created duplicate records for all living people, from what it looks like. I found this out recently when two of my sisters died. They both had duplicate records. I started to notice that the record that I log into was not the record that my wife was connected to. And the record that she logs into is not the record that I am connected to. I started researching and noticed that in August of 2014 duplicate records were created by the family search system for many of my then living relatives and at that point everything is greatly messed up. However, because we are living individuals, Family Search will not correct anything. For one, they won't make changes for living individuals. And for two, the record that they created is not tied into the account that I log in with, so, therefore, I cannot change it. Their support has been no help at all and it appears that we won't be able to merge the records until I die.

FamilySearch is a collaborative Family tree site, one big tree, unlike other sites where you can create your own family tree, and can then collaborate with others with zero DRAMA. PROBLEM on FamilySearch: I've run into 3 really nasty wannabe Queens of Genealogy, one's sent me 7 direct messages, and has written nasty stuff all over my grandmother's page about how she's a master genealogist, former Grand-poo-bah in Family History in her last town, her relative is a programmer at FamilySearch, on & on. I cannot BLOCK this person from spamming me or my relatives' pages.
The other Hilarity, is this site is not backed by DNA testing, so these folks are willing to die on their petty molehill without scientific evidence.

I used to like the site until they turned into liars and frauds. They sent an email to me on March 13, 2023 stating i was related to George Washington. The instruction was to click again to see how. It then said I was an eighth cousin once removed and provided my family tree as supporting evidence. I told my grandkids, who were naturally excited and wanted to tell their friends, but their mom suggesting holding off until further verification. I could not find any and a few days letter, followed up with Family Search and was told I was not related to George Washington at all. They had faked the name of an ancestor on the family tree it turns out. What was gained by them for such blatant lying, I have no idea. I will never trust them again for anything.

I've been trying to unsubscribe from the regular spam mailings from this company for weeks after making the mistake of expressing interest. Even logging into my account and explicitly cancelling there doesn't work and the spam keeps rolling in.

Awful, clunky, too many inaccuracies. No way to merge duplicate entries and maintain the different info garnered in both - you should be able to keep the different information like different name spellings as alternates within the same person’s records! And if one entry is only aware of one marriage and the other is aware of another, or one record knows about some children and the other record knows about others- or one record has more details about one area of the person’s life and the other profile covers details from another period of their life, it should be easy to combine the records - like with Ancestry. Familysearch is the worst genealogy site I’ve used. Just because it’s free doesn’t mean it’s good, or accurate.
There are going to be people I’m related to that I will never find becaof this issue - separate entries for the same oerson.

Also, familysearch doesn’t let you differentiate between known adoptions or step families. So it messes up any true chance at genealogical research.

I’ve used it for 2 days and it’s completely awful.

Plus, if you make a mistake, it doesn’t let you correct it easily, or if you see a mistake or missing information from a record, doesn’t let you add it - it keeps defaulting to the incorrect one.

And people disappear from the tree so you make a new entry but if they’re living you don’t have the option to merge duplicates (because there wilo be 2 entries fir thise people now even if you had to enter their details again because of the glitch of the tree entrees not automatically populating the profile entries family members lists and vice versa.

I wouldn’t trust anything I found on familysearch to be accurate from what I have already seen of the records on my known family!! Just 2 days to see all these flaws! That’s very bad.

I won’t be wasting any more time with it.

(& I only checked it out because I got an invitation from a friend saying ‘let’s see if we’re related’ so something to that effect.

Because the system doesn’t care enough about its users to differentiate between adopted & biological relatives, the ROOTS TECH matches are wrong as well.

It’s extremely frustrating and not user friendly where accuracy is concerned.

I wanted to merge 2 entries that I know for a fact are the same, but it would have deleted all the info from one in favour of the other (including files and records crucial to the person’s profile!) THAT IS NOT WHAT MERGE MEANS!!

It’s so shockingly bad.
And checking out their help forums I have already deduced that these have been an ongoing problems that remain unresolved.

What is the actual point of the site/app/project if they don’t care about accuracy or improvements?

I’m actually disgusted. Such a waste. I could be so good potentially.

Looking at this site I found a number of my family members marked as deceased when they are still well and living.

I have been using Family Search for a couple of years and love it. The site is well organized and easy to navigated. Visually this site makes sense to me.
They are prompt in answering written questions. And either connect or let the user connect to information to build family trees. They also provide some of the best tutorials and supporting genealogy information!

I started using family search c.2006 and always found what I was searching for. But in the last few years some changes must have been made to it because finding what I have typed into the search boxes has become an infuriating task. I put in the terms, e.g William Cato - but get William Edward Cato or Frederick Cato....anyone but the person I'm looking for and always outside or inside of the date I've specified. It's a really frustrating experience now whereas before it was simple and I always found what and who I was looking for. Which ever techs ruined this site should be fired. And, to the 7th day adventists PLEASE put this site back to what it used to be - Wonderful, Helpful, simple to use.

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.

FamilySearch allows me to search a number of historical records and every week they add many new records.

One other good tool is their hints email which automatically send me names of people who I may be related to and are not connected to my tree.

The new website is totally unusable. I couldn't edit a person record to change the date from 1936 to 1836. That fix would have eliminated the web-generated complaint that the mother's birth was after the child (someone put the date in wrong -- should we be eternally punished for it?) I can't even register for the community board because it doesn't accept my username and says "Verified, is not an integer."

I won't use this tool for my family tree. I'll stick with Ancestry. Their website doesn't suck.

THIS SITE DOES NOT EVEN WARRANT ONE STAR. ACCORDING TO THIS SITE I AM A RELATED TO JESUS, NOAH, QUEEN NEFERTITI AND VARIOUS OTHER HISTORICAL FIGURES, KINGS AND QUEENS. IT ACTUALLY STATES THAT MY OLDEST RELATIVE IS GOD HIMSELF AND THE BIG BANG. IT LITERALLY HAS “BIG BANG” WRITTEN IN THE SPACE FOR FATHER. OBVIOUSLY THEY ARE COLLECTING YOUR INFORMATION AND SELLING IT. THEY HAVE ZERO INTEREST IN ACCURACY, BECAUSE THEIR BUSINESS IS INFORMATION COLLECTING AND SELLING NOT GENEALOGY. COMPLETE FRAUD.

A very poor site, very easy to add information to the site but almost impossible to correct even when the incorrect information concerns close family. I have discovered multiple errors in my family tree entered by a number of individuals. I reported the errors where even the sources used to justify the inclusion did not match, but FS did not do anything except advising me to put my comments on the forum.
I don’t see any point in using FS if anyone can alter the data and trees anytime they want to, I am very concerned about the accuracy and reliability of Family Search and now regret adding any data to it, will not be using Family Search from this point on.

This site is awful. The "customer service" people do absolutely nothing to help. The information is not accurate.

I wish I had never put my family genealogy on Family Search. Family Search has absolutely no respect for my decades of research with original records from handwritten Norwegian Parish records dating back to the 1600s and 1700s. These records are difficult to decipher and were contributed by a cousin and her husband who could read old Norwegian language and scripts. Family Search adds very inaccurate information, attaches erroneous records that are just attached and not researched. These records then become so "official" and cannot be challenged or corrected. The idea that US census records, state records, birth records, etc. may have serious inaccuracies don't appear to be considered. Contributors have deleted sourced records I add; have been very, very rude, closed minded and refused corrections. Some editors and/or contributors also do not discern common names that appear to be the correct person but are not the same person who may even come from the same area, county, state (US). Or they don't understand the numerous name derivatives of foreign family names, farms, towns, churches that are in a historical different culture. Some of these names changed throughout time. There appears to be no thought or research in their method of adding sourced records. There is no acknowledgement that I or any family member may have spent decades researching and have so much to offer Family Search and other users. I wish I could delete any and all numerous contributions of my family to Family Search; but it is out there online and will remain with incorrect research that will continue to next generations. Avoid this site or use it as a source only. I wish I had never made a family tree in Family Search. They are right and I am wrong. Black and white and unconscionable thinking and research. I wish I avoided all world wide community genealogy trees. What a nightmare. I wish I had kept all my genealogy offline and only used any genealogical site as a resource to download.

No official opt out so I sent an email to remove some private info, never got a response. Unacceptable.

I thought this was a great website that led me to ancestors I never knew about until.......
I followed several lines of my supposed ancestors including Kings and Queens of England, France and Spain and countless other royalty all the way back to Julius Caesar. It became suspect at the very least. The complete deal breaker was the line that showed I was descended from the marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene.
This is a disgustingly dishonest ripoff. I feel ashamed to even give it one star.