Thursday, October 10, 2013

FamilySearch Family Tree Feature Updates

“The last couple of weeks have seen some changes to [FamilySearch] Family Tree,” wrote Steve Anderson in a recent blog article.

The Report Abuse link is in the Tools box
This and subsequent images
are credit FamilySearch

FamilySearch added the ability to report abuse on the person page. The feature is not intended for reporting incorrect data. Rather, the feature is to give users the ability to report violations of the site terms and conditions, including profanity or other abusive language, sensitive information about living individuals, links to inappropriate websites, and SPAM. To correct wrong data, users should utilize the existing features: changing the data and entering good reason statements, adding sources, participating in discussions, and contacting other users.

In the Print box, options exist for Pedigree, Family, and Family with SourcesUsers can print family group records without sources. I worry a bit about this one. I can imagine it was requested by users who don’t place any value on sources. I don’t recommend using this when sharing printouts with others, but for one’s own working files, if an occasion arises where it is warranted, it is possible.
Specifying the parents or spouse to show in a pedigree is now possible. If a person has multiple parents or spouses, scroll down to the Family Members section of the person page and click the Preferred box.

The Preferred check box is located in the Family Members section of the person page

Wanton merges and deletes can be a problem, even though they can be undone (to some degree). FamilySearch has added stronger warnings to these two operations.

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Another “enhancement” was made to the pedigrees of single individuals. I’ve written about that in a separate article. You’ll probably see it next week.

Stay tuned…

1 comment:

  1. "Users can print family group records without sources. I worry a bit about this one."
    I worry a bit about FamilySearch letting it out. Shouldn't they be educating people by showing them what sources are and proving that they aren't magic spells?

    But I'm also not surprised.... FS FT seems to be full of individuals taken from parish records indexed on FS. For instance, John Spode, baptised 22 Feb 1750, Sandbach, Cheshire, England. He's in FS FT with his baptism event plus his father. That's it. No other relatives, in particular no other data for his father. So far as I can see, this data comes solely from the index entry for that one baptism in "England, Cheshire Bishop's Transcripts, 1598-1900".

    Now, I don't particularly mind FamilySearch creating people in FS FT from the indexes in FS Historical Records. But when they created the people from the index, wouldn't it have been good to have SOURCED the data created???? To have cited the index that the load process just used? Nope, they didn't...

    So - does FS really understand the importance of sources?? I do wonder, I do wonder...

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