would love to do this...emailing you now :)

Old Fixer, although I use the FamilySearch.org web site, and have also used the LDS Family History Library as well as a local Family History Center, I do not have a tree uploaded to their web site. So, I cannot say whether or not "just anyone" can edit information on a tree that is on their site. I will look into that, though. I do know with certainty, however, that if you have a tree on Ancestry.com, you can mark it as Private. No one can see info that is on the tree unless you send them an invitation to see it. If you add photos or images of documents, etc., to a Private tree, small thumbnails will show up when other people do a search on a name, but if anyone clicks on the thumbnail to see a larger version, they will get an error message that the tree is private. You can also have a tree on Ancestry.com that is marked as Public. When a tree is Public, anyone can see information/photos, etc., for anyone who is deceased, or presumed to be deceased (e.g., they were born in 1884 and you don't have a death date, but it's easy to see that the person would not still be alive - they'd be 130 years old this year). If the person is still living, or presumed to still be living, all anyone can see is a shadow profile of either a male's head or a female's head. For the name it would say Living Fixer, so no one can even tell what the person's first name is (this example uses "Fixer" as the surname). And, even if a tree is marked Public, no one can change anything on it, unless you invite the person to be an editor. You can invite people to just view the tree (they would be invited with a "Guest" designation); or you can give them the ability to add to the tree (they would be invited with a "Contributor" designation); or you can invite them as an "Editor" with full ability to add/change/remove information/people. People who are invited as Guests and/or Contributors can be given the ability to view living persons, but that's not the default setting. You have to deliberately give them that ability. Anyone invited as an Editor automatically can see everything.

This has all been interesting. One thing to note is that when a woman married she was considered a "bride" during the first year of marriage. Sophie could have died during that time and been designated as such on the headstone. The designation would have indicated that yes, they were legally married but they did not share a long life together where they were known in the community as a 'couple' and they were probably childless. This archaic designation is sometimes still used today with introductions, such as "This is my cousin Jake and his new bride Mary" or "My brother has returned from his honeymoon with his new bride". Knowing local history can sometimes yield clues. Often times there was a sweeping pestilence that wiped out huge numbers suddenly and headstone markers where put up fast or further engraved years afterwards when some of the defining information had been lost or was unknown. One of the most interesting bits of history I learned was the time period designated Year Without A Summer. Large numbers of people died in the Northeast. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer Here is a link that might be useful: Year Without A Summer

I also get sucked into genealogy, running down leads and finding the unexpected. Here's a short story about my ggrandmother Ella. In 1904, she had 6 young children (including 2 year old twins, one of which was my grandmother). For some reason I have not been able to discover, her husband died. Several months later, she was "compelled," a newspaper story said, to surrender three of the children as she couldn't provide for them. The article was called, "A Mother's Sad Thanksgiving." The twins were split up, each going to one of their deceased father's sisters. Now, here's where it gets REALLY interesting. Apparently ggrandmother was living with a gentleman who was nearly 30 years older than her, keeping his house, I assume. I found a news story telling of, as it said, "A Dastardly Plot" by a young man and 2 of his friends who were quite fond of my ggrandmother. They conspired to kill the man she was living with, shooting both him and his dog. The man did not die, and subsequent newspaper stories claimed the shooter was convicted of the deed BY THE DOG, who growled and was very aggressive toward the shooter. LOL!!! Anyway, to make a long story short, ggrandmother married the older gentleman. 7 months later, she gave birth to another child. I remember ggrandmother Ella - she died when I was 10 or so. And she remained active in my grandmother's life, even though she didn't raise her. She was quite feisty and full of life. Now I know at least SOME of the rest of her story. I am looking for still more on her. How every interesting to learn these things!