1. From http://www.mormoncartoonist.com/
Can I reprint one of your gags or comic strips for my ward newsletter, letter to a missionary, etc? Nothing would please me more.  As long as you’re not using my work to turn a profit (something I haven’t been able to figure out how to do), please feel free to use it.

2. A few techno-facts about FamilySearch Tree
[i.e. the questions that should be asked but usually aren't]
Thanks to Barbara Howell and Susan Lott

3. Why didn’t our great grandparents use sources when they submitted names to the Temple?
Starting in the late 1800’s the church asked members to submit names for the temple. The problem was…
They had no sources except what they could get from their family- bibles, letters, diaries, etc.
Usually the family lived in the East or across the ocean and were hostile non-members anyway.
Sometimes they hired professional genealogists in England to look at the parish records and then they would receive this information by mail. Sometimes you might see an old source that says- parish register by correspondence.
If they did the work themselves for their ancestors, they usually guessed their death dates or birthdates as best they could.

4. A Little Background…
The church organized the extraction program to help keep the temples running.
You could only submit work by whole families and if you couldn't complete the whole family’s information, then you couldn't do the work. 
Old family group sheets – AF
It took about 2 years for these family group sheets to clear.

5.
Members were asked to send in 4 generations, then 5 and then 7. The Church changed the program every 10 years.
In the 1970’s the GIANT program allowed submission of individual people and not just by families. All records had to be typed and surnames had to be in capital letters and come before the given name. Then they reversed that.
The Church finally did mention that sources might be helpful but most people just ask Aunt Susie's opinion or used the shoe box sources that they found. The submission space was very small so you couldn't give a good citation anyway. You just put ‘family records’ and let it go.
Giant- Genealogical Information and Name Tabulation forerunner to Temple ready- AF; People submitted names they had had for years who were not connected to family groups.
Temple ready- computer program- avenue to submit names to temple.

6. Where did data in Family Tree come from?
The original data imported into new.familysearch was a dump of ALL the old data that was in:
Ancestral File
Membership Records
IGI and Ordinance Index
Pedigree Resource File
Then, in 2012, new.familysearch became Family Tree.
When FamilySearch was released in 2012, it was prepopulated with information from AF, IGI, PRF and membership records.
Problems with AF
It contains no notes or sources.
Submitters were responsible for the accuracy of the information. FamilySearch did not check the accuracy of any submission.
Submitter information, previously available, is now hidden for privacy reasons.
Ancestral File contains many errors and corrections are not accepted.
Ancestral File contains duplicates which were not identified and were merged (often due to inconsistent or scanty data).
What is the difference between Ancestral File and Pedigree Resource File?
Both files are the results of user submitted genealogies. Submissions to Ancestral File were merged into one common pedigree. Submissions to Pedigree Resource File are kept separate from other submissions. Notes and sources submitted are preserved in Pedigree Resource File submissions but were discarded from Ancestral File submissions.
ANCESTRAL FILE
A static collection of genealogies submitted by users, prior to 2003, including 40 million ancestors. Entries include names, family relationships, and dates and places of events. Submissions were merged to eliminate duplication. No new contributions or corrections. The CD-ROM version and previous online versions of the Ancestral File displayed submitter names and contact information.
The DOS version of Ancestral File, where available, includes contact information for submitters. The DOS version is currently available on four computers on the 3rd floor of the Family History Library in Salt Lake City and in FamilySearch centers.
PEDIGREE RESOURCE FILE
A growing collection of genealogies submitted by users including hundreds of millions of ancestors. Entries include names, family relationships, and dates and places of events. No corrections or merges are made.

7. So Family Tree is a Melting Pot of Information
What this means for us is a lot of duplicates in the system today. Users have updated, merged duplicates, and verified much of the information in the system since it was imported, but there is still a lot of work to do.

8. What do those brackets mean?
Nancy Jones - born: <1850>  place:  <Minnesota>
Dates and places in brackets are computer generate estimates automatically generated when families were submitted to FamilySearch databases from the 1980s to the early 2000’s.  For example…
If one or two children in a family had a user-submitted birthplace of Pennsylvania, the computer automatically generated a birthplace of <Pennsylvania> for all siblings who did not have a birthplace entered.
Birth information could be generated based on a person's marriage information - automatically estimating a birth date of 20 years before the marriage date, and a birthplace matching the marriage place.
As you can guess, many of these computer generated dates and places ended up being way off from the real data.  ANY date or place with a bracket around it should be considered incorrect (or at least suspicious) until proven correct in original records.  Be aware that duplicates may exist for a person that does not include a person's real data, but instead includes computer-generated data.
Marriage dates and places could also be automatically generated, to be about 2 years prior to the birth of the first child in the family, and assumed the same parish or town.

9. Why are all the surnames in my old PAF database in capital letters?
Surnames that appear in capital letters, such as John SMITH and Elizabeth JONES are nearly always a sign that the data was originally an old Ancestral File download, regardless of where they appear (your own RootsMagic file, Ancesty Trees, FamilySearch, etc.). 

10. With this comes a warning:
Be cautious of information from any file where the surnames are in all caps. 

11. I see a green temple. I found someone to submit for temple work
I see a green temple!  I found someone to submit for temple work! Didn't I?
Don't get too excited when you see little green temples.  They signal a duplicate record far more often than they signal a genuine opportunity for temple work.  The names on your Temple "Opportunities" list should always be thoroughly researched - DO NOT just click submit on those.
Thoroughly check for duplicates using both the "Find Duplicates" feature and also the "Find" function to search for their name and birth year + /- 2 years and their birth county or parish. 

12. What are all these records in the database that are "floating" and not connected to anybody's family tree?  
FamilySearch Tree includes all the records from the old extraction projects. 
The church used to go into old 1600’s, 1700’s and 1800s parish registers and volunteers would write down the data for each christening or marriage record.
Many of these extraction names have completed temple ordinances, while others only have baptisms done, and a few never made it through the system at all and have no ordinances completed. 
All of those extracted christenings were input separately rather than in families. So….

13. If John and Mary Jones had 7 children, each of those children are in the system separately, and the parents John and Mary are each in the system 7 times as a name-only record separately connected to each child.  If John and Mary's marriage record was also part of an extraction project (John Jones and Mary Smith), they'll be in there separately for that (make that total 8 duplicates each) and if they were born in an extracted parish themselves that's one more duplicate record for John Jones and Mary Smith making 9 duplicates in total for each of them!  

14. Why are there a million versions of my ancestor's name in the "other information" section of his page? 
This technical issue is thanks to new.familysearch. Remember when instead of editing, we just had to "add another opinion?"  A lot of these alternate names are left over from that and can include everything from typos to leftovers from merging. 
The official spelling you use for that person should be the one that is used most often in the records.  If that is different than the spelling on their birth or christening record, that is a good reason to include a "birth name" alternate spelling down in the "other information
Prior to about 1910, exact spelling was usually not a high priority for most record keeping....   Most of these alternate names can just be deleted unless you wouldn't be able to find him in a critical record without knowing about the alternate spelling. 

15. Why can there be many versions of the marriage date when I click on "edit couple"?
In Family Tree, you add or correct marriage information for a couple from the Details page. Couples can have more than one marriage event. For example, you can record both the marriage and the divorce information for a divorced couple. Note: The system decides the order of multiple marriages based on the standard date. 

16. I’ve provided a name, date and place, why do I see the “Needs More Information” error when I want to add the person to my temple list?
Do not use the word "or" between names.
Do not use invalid punctuation or invalid characters, such as quotation marks or parentheses, for nicknames.  
Do not separate names with slashes, such as /Smith/.
Do not add a title without a first name.
Do not enter a title in any field but the Title field, regardless of the language. 
Do not enter a suffix (such as Sr., Jr., or III) in any field except the Suffix Field.
When ordinances will not clear and you see the message "Needs More Information," the problem can be caused by an unacceptable name in primarily the first name field.
Just last week I noticed that all the members of my 4th great grandfathers family had been changed to include brackets with the alternate name in the given name line.

17. Look what that did to the Ordinances-
I ed soandso
You may not be aware that adding brackets to names as you have done with several members of this family- William H (Lackore) LeCour, causes an error message and the Temple ordinances show up as needing more information even though the ordinances were done many years ago. If you wish to add an alternate name, scroll down to Add and then Alternate name. These brackets also prevent the Hinting feature from working effectively. Go to the Help Center under Temple and search for the article- Names and symbols causing Needs More Information error. Generally the name used should be the one that is most commonly found in the sources or the one in the most primary source. We all need to realize that this is a collaborative tree and so the surnames used don't have to reflect the name as used by our closest family. My grandmother was a Lucore and the name she used was that spelling. For her second great grandfather Lemuel, the most common spelling is Lackore so that is what we use in the tree.  Best Regards, Cheryl Fugal

18. Why does my line end with "Mr. Smith" and "Mrs. Smith"?
Temple work for an unnamed child or when a name cannot be found
Issues Addressed
What if I do not know the name of the wife?
What if a stillborn child never received a name?
What if I do not know the name of a person?
Policy
Sometimes you need to perform ordinances for someone whose name is not known.
If you cannot find the name of a person but still want to have temple ordinances performed, enter the information below into the Name field:
If you do not know the name of a mother, please check the following in order for the name to qualify:
If the first and last name of a wife are unknown, enter Mrs. in Title field and the name of the husband in the First and Last Name fields.
If the first name of the wife is known but the maiden name is unknown, enter only her first name and leave the last name blank.
If the first name of the wife is unknown but her maiden name is known, enter only her maiden name as the last name. Do not enter a first name. Do not enter Miss. She is uniquely identified by the relationship.
For an individual with an unknown name or a child who died without receiving a name, enter only the last name of the father or family name into the surname field. Do not enter a first name. Do not enter Mr., Miss, son, or daughter. Be sure the sex is correctly entered as male or female.
When the cards are printed, Mr. or Miss is added to the name.
Temple ordinances are not performed for stillborn children.
Do YOU think it is appropriate to add Mr. and
Mrs. at the dead end on your family lines?

19. Happy Navigating on Family Tree!
If tangles are the rule, then what hope is there? 
James Tanner says, Family Tree is the solution, not the problem.
Happy Navigating on Family Tree!