Darned Double Records on FamilySearch.org

Records say the darnedest things.

People have noticed that duplicates exist for some records on FamilySearch.org. There are good reasons. As the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints upgraded their computer systems, information was migrated from one to another. In some instances, information was migrated to multiple places for multiple reasons. Records might be shuttled off to the online International Genealogical Index database. Independently, they might be sent to the British Vital Records Index CD-ROMS. Judging from what FamilySearch has published online, it appears that sometimes information was lost during migrations. And sometimes it wasn’t always the same information. FamilySearch appears to have done the conservative thing and published duplicate records, just in case.

Here’s an example. There is a record of the marriage of Nicholas Chatterton to Joan Aault on FHL microfilm 496,705. It was indexed in batch M05442-2. It has been published twice.

One is at https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:NJB1-QXS.

It made its way to FamilySearch.org via “England-ODM,” as indicated by the “System Origin.” I think that is the equivalent of “England IGI.” (See the FamilySearch Help Center for more information about system origin.) Notice that the event date (why doesn’t FamilySearch call it a marriage date like Ancestry does? Why confuse people?) is 1 August 1568. Notice that the event place is Longford, Derbyshire, England. We’ll learn later that that is the wrong location. This first record has the complete date and the wrong location.

Another copy is https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:NJHJ-152.

It made its way to FamilySearch.org via “England-VR,” which I think means the British Vital Records CD-ROMs. Notice that the event date is 1568. FamilySearch has lost the month and day, 1 August. Notice that the event place is Etwall, not Longford, in Derbyshire. This second record has an incomplete date, but the correct location.

If FamilySearch removes one of these duplicates—whichever one—they lose information not present in the other. Now do you see why there are duplicate records on FamilySearch.org? I know people who, when finding duplicate hints, accept one and mark the other as not-a-match. Don’t do that. In the first place, that damages the hinting system. In the second, you may be throwing away information.

By now you’re wondering how I knew which location was the correct one. That is an excellent question. First, I looked up the film number in the catalog, expecting it to list one of the two parishes. It listed both. That left the batch number as my only hope. Here you’ll have to go old school: look up the batch number in the PVRL (Parish and Vital Records Listing) on microfiche. I’m disappointed that FamilySearch hasn’t published the PVRL online. You’ll have to find a family history center that has kept their PVRL microfiche—and kept a fiche reader. Go to the center and look up the batch number to check the name of the parish, hoping the batch wasn’t extracted after the fiche was published. When you complete this exercise, you find that Etwall is correct.

By now you’re also wondering how prevalent blatant place errors are in FamilySearch’s records. There is something you can do to get a feeling as to the quality of a collection. From the collection’s main page, select “Learn More.” That takes you to a wiki article about the collection. Scroll down looking for the section titled “Known Issues with This Collection.” Click the icon to get to the wiki article about the errors in the collection. The “England Marriages, 1538-1973” collection has four screens of errors. One line addresses our error:

Film 0496705, Batch M05442-2: The correct event place as Longford, Derbyshire, not Etwall, Derbyshire.

That’s opposite of my conclusion. Going back to the PVRL, I looked up Etwall and Longford. The batch number for Etwall is M05442-2. The batch number for Longford is M05549-2. Either the PVRL is wrong or the wiki is wrong. My guess is that the wiki has it backwards. But who can tell?

There are a couple of things to learn here. Don’t assume that a computer file is copied exactly when migrated from place to another. In this example, database programmers introduced the errors, not non-English speaking indexers. And never, never trust a derivative record. Always, always find and look at the original or a trustworthy image of it.

Yes, records say the darnedest things.

Ancestry Insider Named One of Family Tree Magazine’s Top Blogs

I learned last week that Family Tree Magazine has named me one of the top five genealogy blogs. Thank you, Family Tree Magazine. I am grateful to your editorial’s staff’s encouragement that I stick with blogging even though I’m a poor writer. Hopefully, I make up for it by presenting useful content.

Speaking of which, enough about me. Let me give you something actually useful. The other four genealogy blogs are

• Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter – “The Daily Online Genealogy Newsletter”
  
• GeneaBloggers – “The ultimate site for your genealogy blog – an online community created by Thomas MacEntee”
  
• Lisa Louise Cooke's Genealogy Gems – “A genealogy and family history multi-media company."”
  
• The Genealogy Guys Podcast – “George G. Morgan and Drew Smith discuss genealogy. This is the longest-running, regularly produced genealogy podcast in the world!”

Family Tree Magazine honored YouTube as a sixth choice. I’ve discovered the same thing of late. Here’s just some of the useful channels I’ve looked at:

• Ancestry.com
  
• BYU Family History Library
  
• DearMYRTLE
  
• ExtremeGenes – (Scott Fisher has a soft spot in my heart because I won stuff on his radio show when I was in college!)

Read David A. Fryxell’s take on these blogs at http://familytreemagazine.com/article/best-genealogy-blogs-2015.

Read his comments about the other “101 Best Websites,” 2015 at http://familytreemagazine.com/article/101-best-websites-2015 and:

• Best Virtual Library Websites
  
• Best Big Genealogy Websites
  
• Best Historical Newspaper Websites
  
• Best Large-Database Genealogy Websites
  
• Best State Genealogy Websites
  
• Best Websites for Finding African-American Ancestry
  
• Best Military Genealogy Websites
  
• Best Family Tree Websites
  
• Best Geographical Genealogy Websites
  
• Best Genealogy Tech Tools
  
• Best Websites for Vital Records
  
• Best Immigrant Genealogy Websites
  
• Best Canadian Genealogy Websites
  
• Best Continental European Genealogy Websites
  
• Best Social Media Websites for Genealogy
  
• Best Genealogy Blogs
  

 

RootsTech Open for Registration

I am honored that RootsTech has asked me to be an Ambassador for another year. Thank you, RootsTech.

RootsTech opened their doors for registration last week. I got registered and immediately went to get a hotel registration. I was disappointed that my favorite hotel is already sold out! If you plan on coming, you better grab up lodging quickly, or you may find yourself facing a little inconvenience. Salt Lake hosts conferences that are plenty bigger than RootsTech, so there are plenty of rooms around the city, but the official conference hotels, give discounts and are within easy walking distance of both the Salt Palace and the Family History Library. See http://rootstech.org/attend/hotels for more information.

Each year I see RootsTech drawing in more national level speakers, and that’s true again this year. I don’t mean to dis the local experts. As you might guess, the Salt Lake area is full of genealogical expertise, many of which can’t travel to the other national conferences, so they aren’t well known. But my point is that RootsTech continues to grow in national prominence. For more information about speakers, see https://rootstech2016.smarteventscloud.com/connect/search.ww.

Hopefully, by the time you read this they will have fixed the color rendering bugs affecting the course descriptions. Here (below, left) is a snippet as it was last weekend when I wrote this. Long time readers know that I harp constantly on the shortcomings of websites that try to use low contrast color schemes. Graphic artists seem to be constantly drawn in by pretty instead of utility. If they haven’t fixed it by the time you read it, the workaround is to select the text. Here (below right) is what it looks like if you select it.

 

Come to RootsTech and say hello. The Ancestry Insider isn’t teaching any sessions this year, so it may be hard for you to pick me out. Look for the guy in the blue shirt, glasses, bushy eyebrows, and suspenders. My hair has thinned out and grayed since my last photograph (below), and my employer makes me wear a collar, but you should still be able to pick me out of the 10,000 people in attendance.

See you there!

Monday Mailbox: Getting Your Stuff Off Ancestry.com

Dear Readers,

My article “Soon the New Ancestry Will be the Only Ancestry” drew lots of response. Thank you for sharing your feelings about and experiences with the New Ancestry.com. Most of you who don’t like the New Ancestry shared particular grievances; good job! Some of you chipped in with solutions to some of the problems expressed. There’s another advantage of being particular. Thank you!

Some of you seem pretty intent on leaving Ancestry. If you are serious about carrying through on the threat, the answer to Charmaine Ortega Getz’s question may be of use.

Dear Ancestry Insider,

I have only recently discovered this excellent blog and am slowly getting up to speed. I apologize if this question has been asked before: Is there a good way to remove information from one's own Tree on Ancestry to one's own computer?

Signed,
Charmaine Ortega Getz

Dear Charmaine,

A good way to copy information from Ancestry.com’s member trees is to purchase Family Tree Maker. You can download all your information, including document images of the database images attached to your tree.

I use FTM as a backup to my tree, should the unthinkable happen. I think it is something we should all do, where ever we keep our tree. (Now, I just need to track down my disks to reload it on my new computer. Or did I download it?)

Signed,
The Ancestry Insider

Darned Roaming Basket Makers

A coworker alerted me to a funny Facebook post by Deidre Denton of Twisted Twigs on Gnarled Branches of Genealogy.

You probably think you have some ancestors that just dropped onto the planet from outer space. Well, there’s another explanation:

They were roaming basket makers living in the woods.

The enumerator added this note about this band of nomads:

These People live in
the woods and you
can hardly Tell whether
they are Human or
                 Brutes

Yes, records say the darnedest things.

News Ketchup for 17 September 2015

I’ve got a zillion article ideas I don’t have time to act upon. Time to ketchup.

FamilySearch recently announced a partnership with the Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records to digitize their 5,000 genealogy book collection. Like other books on the books.FamilySearch.org website, they will be available for use 24 x 7. Scanning is expected to take six months. For more information, see “State Library, FamilySearch Partner to Make Genealogy Records Accessible” on the FamilySearch Blog.

RootsTech has announced that the prize package for the 2016 RootsTech Innovator Showdown will total $100,000! “Innovator Showdown seeks to support, foster, and inspire innovation within the family history marketplace,” said the press release. For more information, see “2016 RootsTech Innovator Showdown Offering $100,000 in Prizes!” on the FamilySearch Blog.

As an aside, I was amused that Gmail warned me that the Innovator Showdown press release might be a phishing scheme. They thought someone might be trying to scam me with an offer of $100,000. <smile>

A reader alerted me that she received an email from a sender named “big foot pilot” concerning the FamilySearch Pilot indexing tool. You’ll recall Jake Gehring introduced the FamilySearch Pilot indexing tool at the 2015 BYU conference. (See “FamilySearch Should Increase Indexing Efficiency and Utilize Partnerships” on my blog.) This email invited the reader to share information about the tool with anyone, so I’m sharing with you. A new update has added the following features to the tool:

• Search – the Family Search Pilot tool database
  
• Instant publication – of data entered into the Family Search Pilot tool database
  
• Download – your own data
  
• User Edits – on the individual record page
  
• Direct link – to the Family Search Records Search webpage

It will be exciting to see where this pilot goes, if anywhere. That’s the nature of pilots, afterall.

This next feature really deserves an article all its own, but I just don’t have time. It just kills me. FamilySearch has released a feature allowing you to send messages to those scoundrels who are changing your ancestors! Prior to this feature, you could discuss changes only with persons who disclosed their email addresses. Now, you can send a message to anyone who changes anything. To read more about this new feature, see “FamilySearch Messaging on FamilySearch.org” on the FamilySearch blog.

FamilySearch recently published a list of the new features released in August. They are:

• Added 300,000 places to the list of places known by Family Tree.
  
• Updated the Family Members section of the person page.
  
• Added ability to add a child from the Landscape Pedigree view of Family Tree.
  
• Added some features previously missing from the mobile app.
  
• Added ability in mobile app to “receive notifications from FamilySearch.org when a photo, story, or audio file is uploaded or updated for people in your scope of interest. (The scope of interest is 4 generations of ancestors and 1 generation of their descendants.)”
  
• Updated the Memories Person page (not to be confused with the Tree Person page).
  
• Added true thumbnails for historical record images.
  
• Created a web page containing some of the functionality available at FamilySearch Discovery Centers, such as meaning of surname, and so forth. (See https://familysearch.org/campaign/discover.)

For more information, see “What’s New on FamilySearch—August, 2015” on the FamilySearch blog.

Ancestry.com shared a little more information about Cathy Petti, their new Chief Health Officer (CHO) and posted a link to a Fortune article about her. See the short posting, “Cathy Petti Joins Ancestry Leadership,” on the Ancestry Tech Roots Blog and “Meet the Woman Leading Ancestry.com Into the World of Personal Genetics” on the Fortune website. There are clues in the article, for sure, about what Ancestry may have up its DNA sleeve.

AncestryDNA has released a new feature that lets you “See Your DNA Matches in a Whole New Way.” It is a tool called “Shared Matches.” I don’t have much time to research or write about it, but here’s what I know thus far. I checked out my list of matches and picked out one, PPatricia…, who hasn’t linked her results to a tree. Consequently, I don’t know how we are related. I selected the Shared Matches feature and AncestryDNA listed all the people who exist in both her list of matches and my list. One of them, cooperjh, had a shaky leaf, so I checked it out and found a probable common ancestor between cooperjh and myself. That ancestor was surnamed Pitcher. That common ancestor may or may not be a common ancestor between PPatricia… and myself. It’s an important clue. Even without a shaky leaf, standard triangulation techniques using surnames, locales, and time frames can help identify common ancestors.

I next utilized another feature I hadn’t noticed before. While PPatricia… had not linked her results to a tree, AncestryDNA showed that she has a tree. She just hasn’t linked to it. Guess what the name of the tree is? Yup, “Pitcher-something-or-another.”

AncestryDNA is utilizing the same technology to provide an additional filter for your match list: father/mother. If one or both of your parents have been tested, then AncestryDNA can filter your results according to the matches shared between your parent and yourself. (Here’s a private message for Ancestry: you provide both father and mother filters only if both have been tested. If only my mother has been tested, can you provide a “Not Your Mother” filter? Hmmm. Now that I think about it, it would be useful even if both parents have been tested.)

For more information, see “See Your DNA Matches in a Whole New Way” on the Ancestry Blog.

If you’ve ever considered working for Ancestry, you may be interested in a post by Ancestry’s Jeremy Johnson. He first joined Ancestry as a  software engineer in 2006. After leaving briefly, he came back in 2008. “Like many of my colleagues at Ancestry who pursue work elsewhere, I came back.” I know a couple of people that fall into that category. Jeremy’s post has an unabashed agenda. But if you’re thinking about it, check out “Insights on Culture and Events at Ancestry” on the Ancestry Tech Roots blog.

FamilySearch announced the results of their “Fuel the Find” campaign. There were 82,039 people who contributed at least one batch during the weeklong event. There were 12,251,870 records indexed and 2,307,876 records arbitrated. There were 221 volunteers on the African continent. south America rang in with an amazing 12,571 volunteers. Polish language batches drew out 64 volunteers. English, Spanish, Portuguese, and French were the top four languages.

For more information, see “Thank You for Helping to Fuel the Find!” on the FamilySearch blog.

When NARA was preparing to renew its partnership with Ancestry it solicited comments. The partnership agreement has several key changes:

• The five year embargo period—that’s the period that NARA has to wait before publishing its records for free to the public—is effectively shortened by 12-24 months. NARA accomplishes this by starting the clock when Ancestry digitizes the records rather than publishes them. This incents Ancestry to publish quickly, perhaps not waiting for an entire collection to be digitized.
  
• This makes it easier for NARA to know when it can publish. It doesn’t have to wait for Ancestry to say when the publication occurred.
  
• NARA is given the ability to recover costs associated with supporting Ancestry, while allowing them the choice of not recovering costs.
  
• Outlines procedures for protecting personably identifiable information.

There were 52 comments to a NARA blog post on the topic. You may find them interesting reading. See “Ancestry.com Partnership Agreement for Public Comment” on the NARAtions blog.

I’ve noticed that FamilySearch URLs of records and images all contain “/ark:/61903/”. Wikipedia contains some information about this form of URL. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archival_Resource_Key. FamilySearch seems to be switching from PAL (persistent archival links) to ARK (archival resource key) URLs. I’ve tried a few old PAL URLs and they still work.

FamilySearch announced last month that they had opened a second discovery center. Its Seattle Discovery Center is located in Bellevue, Washington. At RootsTech earlier this year, Dennis Brimhall called discovery centers “a museum of you.” According to the announcement,

The Seattle Family Discovery Center is a free community attraction funded entirely by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, of which FamilySearch International is a nonprofit subsidiary.  “We believe our precious family relationships and experiences in this life do not end with death,” said Dennis Brimhall, CEO of FamilySearch International and managing director of the Family History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

For more information, read the press release on the Church’s news website.

Jason Chaffetz is a congressman from Utah. Every year or two he introduces a bill to kill or damage the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC). I think there is no doubt that there are more genealogists in Chaffetz’s district than in any other congressional district in the nation, per capita if not outright.

It’s late, I’m tired. I better go to bed.

Soon the New Ancestry Will be the Only Ancestry

In response to my article about Ancestry.com’s new probate records, you, my readers, jumped on the chance to provide feedback about the New Ancestry website design. Good for you. I’m especially proud of those that mentioned specific dislikes. Those are actionable. The “I just don’t like it ” comments are largely ineffective.

Well done.

Ancestry continues to give regular updates on what they’ve done to fix or improve things. Here are some recent updates:

• The New Ancestry: September 11th Feature Update
• The New Ancestry: September 4th Feature Update
• The New Ancestry: August 29th Feature Update

Most of the items mentioned revolve around missing features, so I’m not certain they are going to fix things like color schemes. They are not likely to fix that unless they hire a color expert that tells them that light and airy designs sell 20% more subscriptions than dark and dreary ones.

Some of the responses to these posts make me wonder if the commenters know that there is both a LifeStory view (below, left) and a Facts view (below, center) The facts view with alternate facts, family events, and historical insights turned off most nearly mirrors the timeline view of the old Ancestry (below, right).

They are very similar. There are still differences, to be sure, so there are still specific changes that users can report they dislike. But the facts view configured this way eliminates many of the problems that users are complaining about.

I think the much disliked circular portraits are another example of designers and decision makers who haven’t done a lot of their own genealogy. You don’t have to go terribly far back before you reach ancestors who lived before the ubiquitous use of photography. At that point, many people make use of a grave marker or document image as a substitute they associate with an ancestor. While the human face is oval, these objects are rectangular. Imposing circular portraits causes clipping or unsightly juxtaposition of circles over rectangles.

  

Ancestry is planning to implement clipping and scaling of portraits. Perhaps at the same time they could allow users to opt for rectangular display. While you’re at it, use face recognition software to default to circles for faces and rectangles otherwise.

Here are a couple of other suggestion for clipping and scaling. The Ancestry mockup imposes a circular shape. Since the human face is oval, allow ovals if desired. Also, FamilySearch Family Tree doesn’t allow the circle control points to be outside the bounds of the photograph. When a face is close to a photograph edge, it’s impossible to get the circle centered on the face. This is especially true for group photographs. Hopefully, Ancestry and FamilySearch will both allow control points off the edge of a photograph.

You know the drill, people. Ancestry is going to retire the old Ancestry whether you like it or not. That’s the reality of aging technology infrastructure. While they are making the transition, they will respond—more or less—to user feedback. After the transition, there is very little chance they will pull an engineer off another project to respond to you. Make your voice heard now. Make it actionable, such as “The old timeline had a link in each event that…, and the new site does not. You could fix this by…” I’m thinking that leaving your feedback on one of the weekly updates might get the most notice.

Now’s the time. Let your voice be heard.

Monday Mailbox: Research Guidance and Ancestry.com Ownership

Dear Ancestry Insider,

I thought Ancestry was sponsored by the LDS [The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints] and was a church non-profit.

Signed,
Judith Martin

Dear Judith,

This is a common misconception. The Church owns FamilySearch, not Ancestry.com. Ancestry.com is a for-profit company and FamilySearch is a non-profit company. For more information, see my article “Ancestry.com Sold for $1.6 Billion.”

Signed,
---The Ancestry Insider

---

Dear Ancestry Insider,

Was it you who published a list of guides on how to research Blacks, Irish, English, etc.?

If so, how do I access them?

Bob Hardiman

Dear Bob,

It might have been me. I know I’ve pointed out the extensive set published by Ancestry.com. These have a tendency to be biased towards Ancestry.com’s offerings, but that is to be expected.

The Family History Library used to publish excellent research guides. To prevent them from falling into the wrong hands, they’ve cut them up into little pieces and hid them in the FamilySearch Wiki. Unlike paper research guides, which have a well defined reading sequence, the wiki is a “maze of twisty little passages, all different.” Seriously though, if you can get past the non-sequential nature of a wiki, the research guides—for some topics—are almost beyond compare.

1. Start at FamilySearch.org.
2. Select Search. It is near the top of the page.
3. Select Wiki. It is in the next row down.
4. For help with a geographic related topic, like Irish and English, click on the map. See “England Genealogy” for an example converted from paper.
5. For help with a non-geographic research interest, search for it. See “Jewish Genealogy Research” and “African American Genealogy” for examples converted from paper research guides.

The old, paper guides were decidedly biased towards Family History Library books and microfilm. But since the wiki can be edited by anyone, it embraces a much wider set of resources, including databases from Ancestry.com and other websites.

Signed,
---The Ancestry Insider

Darned Records: “Published Errors Are Immortal”

We depend upon records to reveal the “truth” about our pasts.

Yet sometimes records have anomalies. Some are amusing or humorous. Some are interesting or weird. Some are peculiar or suspicious. Some are infuriating, or downright laughable.

Yes, “Records say the Darnedest Things.”

Robert Charles Anderson is the eminent genealogist who has been director of the Great Migration Study Project at NEHGS since 1988. He made an interesting statement recently regarding The Great Migration Directory. The directory lists all New England immigrants from 1620 through 1640. If there was any question of an immigrant having arrived early enough, Robert’s philosophy was to exclude them.

Because published errors are immortal, an error of omission is always preferable to an error of commission. If someone who was not a Great Migration immigrant is included in this volume, that mistaken conclusion will live forever on library shelves.¹

It’s a concept we all know. But having a noted genealogist state it so succinctly was cool. From this point on, I will quote Robert. “Published errors are immortal.”

It was once published that my cousin, Lucy Mack Smith, was the granddaughter of Sarah Cone, instead of the currently accepted conclusion that she was the granddaughter of Lydia Fuller.² The error still persists.³

Anybody out there fighting a published error? An error in the Ancestral File or the International Genealogical Index, perhaps?

 

 

---

Sources

     1.  Robert Charles Anderson, “Documenting New England's Founders in the Great Migration Directory,” American Ancestors (Spring 2015): 27-8.
     2.  Audentia Smith Anderson, Ancestry and Posterity of Joseph Smith and Emma Hale (Independence, Missouri: Herald Publishing House, 1929), 201; citing Heman Hale Smith, Journal History (Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) 5:424.
     3.  Two examples can be found on RootsWeb’s WorldConnect.

Ancestry.com Announces Landmark Probate Collection

Last week Ancestry.com announced a new, significant, collection of databases: U.S. Wills and Probates. The collection contains more than 170 million images covering all 50 states, and spanning years from 1668 to 2005. The documents mention more than 100 million people, including the deceased and others mentioned in the records. This is the first time there has been a will and probate collection of this scale for the United States online.

Ancestry has invested several years and $10 million to license and digitize these records! The effort will continue for several years to come. While Ancestry has been accused of pandering their new website design for beginners, in my opinion the choice to publish probate records demonstrates a dedication to experienced users as well. If you learn the handwriting, wills aren’t too bad for less experienced genealogists.

“Wills can offer an incredible view into the lives of your ancestors, going beyond names and dates, and providing insight into their personality, character, achievements, relationships, and more,” said Todd Godfrey, vice president of global content.

According to Ancestry’s Matt Deighton, this is the collection that Ancestry announced at RootsTech. In 2013 Ancestry’s Tim Sullivan said, “It’s exciting for me to stand on this stage at this conference and announce our largest and most ambitious collaboration with FamilySearch ever. Over the next three years FamilySearch and Ancestry are going to work together to digitize and index over 140 million pages of U.S. probate records spanning from 1800 to 1930.” Interestingly, Ancestry’s press release contains no mention that the collection was a collaborative effort. FamilySearch made no corresponding announcement so there is no information as to when or even if FamilySearch will publish the same collection.

This collection utilizes new features of the New Ancestry website, which I believe to be support for packets of records. It includes a table of contents for the packet. This great new feature identifies the document types in the packet and gives the ability to jump directly to a particular document. Because it requires these new features, these databases can not be viewed with the old website.

For more information see

• Ancestry Blog article
• Research Guide (4 p. PDF)
• Fancy search page for the entire probate collection
• Group search page for both old and new U.S. wills and probates and a list of all the databases in the collection
• Press release

Monday Mailbox: When Will FamilySearch Post Italian Films?

Dear Ancestry Insider,

Does anyone know when Family Search will digitize more of it's microfilms. I have hundreds of relatives from Sant' Angelo dei lombardi, Italy. Family Search put a few of that regions films online, not indexed. But the rest of the films for earlier dates have not been put on line. While indexing is nice to have, my main concern is that they put the rest of Sant' Angelo dei Lombardi's films online. Many of us cannot access a family history center. The films are just sitting there...Please Family Search put the films online.

Signed,
Patricia Ann Kellner

Dear Patricia,

From what I’ve seen FamilySearch rarely publishes unindexed Italian records except for civil registration records. From all external indications, you’re out of luck. There might be something you can do. FamilySearch has a project to index Italian civil registration records. I’m guessing that the faster they get the project done, the faster they will move on to other records. For more information visit https://familysearch.org/italian-ancestors/.

Signed,
tai

Artifact Citations

I came across a beautiful sampler on the Smithsonian’s website. I thought it would make a great example for an artifact citation. One possible format for an artifact reference note^a is

     1.  Creator, title or description, artifact type, creation date, archival identification; archive name, archive location. Optional explanatory notes.

For the Smithsonian sampler the corresponding citation is

     2.  Sarah A. Skillen, “Sarah A. Skillin's Sampler,” sampler, 1835, id number 1983.0617.03, American Samplers collection; Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Washington, D.C. Gift of Mrs. Robert B. Stephens.

One principle of citation writing is that redundant information can be eliminated if the citation remains clear. Notice in note 2 that the title identifies the artifact as a sampler. There is no need to repeat it as the artifact type.

      3.  Sarah A. Skillen, “Sarah A. Skillin's Sampler,” 1835, id number 1983.0617.03, American Samplers collection; Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Washington, D.C. Gift of Mrs. Robert B. Stephens.

But this sampler is not available for public examination at the Smithsonian. Most of us can access it only via the high quality image on the Smithsonian website. Derivative copies (be they images or textual) of artifacts accessed via a website require a layered citation.^b In the case of a textual derivative, the citation layer for the online item proceeds the citation layer of the original. In the case of a high-quality image derivative, the citation layer for the original typically proceeds that of the derivative:

     4.  Citation to the original; citation to the online item.

The citation to the online item—devoid of provenance—would follow the pattern for a separately-authored chapter of a published book.^c

     5.  Item creator, item title, item type, website title (URL : accessed date), navigation instructions.

For our sampler in particular, the citation to the online item could look like this:

     6.  Smithsonian Museum of American History, “Sarah A. Skillen’s Sampler,” digital image, Smithsonian: The National Museum of American History (http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_1096007 : accessed 22 August 2015), click the thumbnail.

Put together, the citation looks as follows. I’ve color coded the layer containing the citation to the online item.

     7.  Sarah A. Skillen, “Sarah A. Skillin's Sampler,” 1835, id number 1983.0617.03, American Samplers collection; Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Washington, D.C.; Smithsonian Museum of American History, “Sarah A. Skillen’s Sampler,” digital image, Smithsonian: The National Museum of American History (http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_1096007 : accessed 22 August 2015), click the thumbnail. Gift of Mrs. Robert B. Stephens.

Here we again invoke the principle of eliminating redundancy, again. The title of the artifact and the title of the online item are both “Sarah A. Skillin’s Sampler.” The latter can be dropped. The item creator, Smithsonian Museum of American History, is redundant with the title of the website, so the former can be dropped. That leaves:

     8.  Sarah A. Skillen, “Sarah A. Skillin's Sampler,” 1835, id number 1983.0617.03, American Samplers collection; Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Washington, D.C.; digital image, Smithsonian: The National Museum of American History (http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_1096007 : accessed 22 August 2015), click the thumbnail. Gift of Mrs. Robert B. Stephens.

You’ll notice I didn’t drop the name of the artifact creator, Sarah A. Skillen, even though it appears in the artifact title. That was a judgment call. Does “Sarah A. Skillin's Sampler” mean Sarah created the sampler or merely owned it? I thought it ambiguous enough to warrant leaving Sarah’s name as artifact creator.

Reference note 8 uses the complete URL of the sampler. Citing the URL of the item versus citing the home page URL is another judgment call. Item URLs are often short lived. Home page URLs are typically valid longer. Another way to cite the image is to use the home page and instructions on how to navigate from the stated URL to the image. Here are some alternatives:

     9.  Sarah A. Skillen, “Sarah A. Skillin's Sampler,” 1835, id number 1983.0617.03, American Samplers collection; Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Washington, D.C.; digital image, Smithsonian: The National Museum of American History (http://americanhistory.si.edu/ : accessed 22 August 2015), search for “Sarah A. Skillin's Sampler.” Gift of Mrs. Robert B. Stephens.

   10.  Sarah A. Skillen, “Sarah A. Skillin's Sampler,” 1835, id number 1983.0617.03; Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Washington, D.C.; digital image, Smithsonian: The National Museum of American History (http://americanhistory.si.edu/ : accessed 22 August 2015), path: Collections > Object Groups > American Samplers > Sarah A. Skillin's Sampler.” Gift of Mrs. Robert B. Stephens.

   11.  Sarah A. Skillen, “Sarah A. Skillin's Sampler,” 1835, id number 1983.0617.0; Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Washington, D.C.; digital image, Smithsonian: Seriously Amazing (http://www.si.edu/ : accessed 22 August 2015), search for “American Samplers.” Gift of Mrs. Robert B. Stephens.

Note 9 cites the home page of the National Museum of American History and navigates via a search. Note 11 navigates from that same page, but using a click path. Note 11 cites the home page of the Smithsonian itself and navigates via a search. In this last case, interestingly, the title of the website changes. In all three notes, I dropped the instruction to “click the thumbnail.” This is another judgment call. Another principle of citation creation allows you to leave out information that is common knowledge. I decided that everyone knows that you click a thumbnail to get the full-size image.

One of the lessons to be learned here is that there is leeway in citation format.

What if this sampler was in a private collection? The basic citation format of note 1 can be adapted for private ownership. Without archival identification, the item must be described in greater detail. And describing the provenance is at least as important as an artifact under the control of a trusted archive. Since artifacts under private ownership are transitory, it is helpful to know what year the artifact was at the stated location.^d

   12.  Creator, generic description, artifact type, creation date, collection identification; privately held by owner, owner’s location, access year. Explanatory notes including greater description and provenance.

If I owned the sampler and gave you access to it sometime in 2015, the note could look like this:

   13.  Sarah A. Skillen, Simeon and Nancy (Adams) Skillen family sampler, 1835, artifact collection; privately held by Ancestry Insider, [address for private use,] Salt Lake City, Utah, 2015. The names and birth dates of Simeon, Nancy, and children, and the death date of Silas are embroidered, framed by flowering vines wrapped around columns, on a linen cloth measuring 21 1/8 x 17 5/8 inches. The present owner obtained the sampler under dubious circumstances from the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, which received it as a gift in 1982 from Mrs. Robert B. Stephens, Potomac, Maryland. It is unknown how Mrs. Stephens obtained it.

So, what do you think? Questions? Comments? How would you have cited it?

---

Sources

     a.  Elizabeth Shown Mills, Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace, 3d ed. (Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing, 2015), 124-5.
     b.  Mills, Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources, 58. Elizabeth Shown Mills, “QuickLesson 19: Layered Citations Work like Layered Clothing,” Evidence Explained: Historical Analysis, Citation & Source Usage (https://www.evidenceexplained.com/content/quicklesson-19-layered-citations-work-layered-clothing : accessed 22 August 2015).
     c.  Mills, Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources, 57.
     d.  Ibid., 138-9.

Guiding Principles for Cleaning Up Messes in Family Tree – #BYUFHGC

This is the second of two articles about Ben Baker’s presentation at the 2015 BYU Conference on Family History and Genealogy. Ben’s topic was “Help! My Family is all Messed Up on FamilySearch Family Tree.” His slides and syllabus are available at http://www.slideshare.net/bakers84/help-my-family-is-all-messed-up-on-familysearch-family-tree and http://www.slideshare.net/bakers84/help-my-family-is-all-messed-up-on-familysearch-family-tree-handout, respectively.

Ben presented a list of guiding principles to use when cleaning up messes in Family Tree.

Play Nice With Others

Remember this is a shared tree. Don’t be too bullheaded. Apologize when you’ve messed up. Be nice how you approach people. When people mess up, it’s generally because they don’t realize what they are doing. Some users delete people thinking they are operating in a private tree.

Watch out for mytreeitus. Ron Tanner came up with the term; Ben Baker gave a dictionary-like definition:

mytreeitus \mī-trē-ˈī-təs\ (noun)
An inflammation common to many genealogists,
particularly heavy users of PAF. Symptoms include
extreme anxiety over others modifying their extensive
genealogical research, possessiveness of ancestors,
unwillingness to work in collaborative family trees and
disregard for others when removing erroneous
persons from their family. Usually occurring in more
mature adults and rarely seen in those under 40.
[Ouch! Ben didn’t score any points with his largely older-than-40 audience.]
Learning to use FamilySearch Family Tree has been
shown to be an effective treatment for this affliction.

Make Your email address public. To do so, click on your name in the upper-right corner of the screen. Click settings. Click Contact. Enter your email address and check the Public box next to it. There is a messaging system coming soon that will allow you to send messages to others, even if their email address is not public. [Since the conference, that feature has been released.]

Draw Pictures and Take Notes

Most of the problems that Ben runs into are messed up families. To help sort things out, draw a picture showing the relationships as they should be. Here’s a diagram with a father who fathered his first child with his first wife and his second child with his second wife:

Pay attention to the PIDs. Each record has a PID. If a person has two different PIDs, then there are two different records that need to be merged. If two different persons have the same PID, then they aren’t really two at all. They are merely showing up twice in the same diagram. I’ve created an example, below. While Imaginary Child (LKPR-R95) and Imaginary Child (LKPR-R9N) are the same person, there are two PIDs. That means there are two records that need to be merged. Also notice that there are two of Imaginary Child (LKPR-R9N). By paying attention to the PIDs, we see that there are not really two; it is the same record showing up twice.

To keep track of things, open up multiple browser tabs. To open a new tab or window when clicking a link, use a middle click or a right click of your mouse [or hold down the control-key while clicking].

If you are really worried about how to do things, try things out on http://beta.familysearch.org. Beta has almost the same information as the real Family Tree, changing stuff on beta doesn’t change the real tree. If you are uncertain how to go about making a change, go over there and try things out. FamilySearch also tests new features there. To see features that might be coming, you can go over there every once in a while and see what looks different.

Family Tree has two relationship types: parent-child and couple. FamilySearch developers call a parent-child relationship a tertiary relationship because there are three people involved: a father, a mother, and a child. Family Tree uses the same innards for a single parent situation, but leaves one parent empty.

A married couple with one child is represented in Family Tree with two relationships: a couple relationship (because of the marriage) and a parent-child relationship. Ben showed the screen snippet, below, with little icons overlaid showing the couple relationship and the parent-child relationship. To edit or delete the couple relationship, click the pencil icon to their right. To edit or delete the parent-child relationship, click the pencil icon to the child’s right.

Let me make an aside here. A nuance sometimes lost on people is that there can be a parent-child relationship with parents who don’t have a couple relationship with each other. The biological father might be nothing more than a sperm-donor, for example. In the Imaginary family, above, there is no couple relationship between Imaginary Father and Imaginary Mother. Instead of showing a marriage date between them, Family Tree shows a link to “Add Couple Relationship.”

We return now to Ben’s presentation, already in progress...

“Let me reiterate! Above all! DO NOT CLICK THERE!” [Oops. Makes me wish I had been listening. Oh well.]

Ben showed a family not unlike the imaginary family I showed previously. Imaginary Child (LKPR-R9N) is shown once with both parents and once with just his father. This is a common scenario. Ben asked attendees how to fix it. One suggestion was to add the missing mother. That was not the correct answer. The child is part of two parent-child relationships. The first parent-child relationship has both parents. The second parent-child relationship has just the father. It is incomplete and unnecessary; delete the extra relationship.

Deleting a person, on the other hand, is rarely the right thing to do. When there is an extraneous person in a family, don’t delete him, delete the relationship. (This makes sense when you think about it. Family Tree is intended to be the family tree of all mankind. Everyone who ever lived needs to be in there. Keep the person, just get him out of the family.)

There are probably only two times when you should delete a person: If you find a fictitious person such as the god Odin or Mickey Mouse, you should delete him. Or if you have just barely added a person and realize that was a  dumb thing to do, delete him. In fact, FamilySearch will soon make changes so the latter condition is the only one in which you can delete a person. For a fictitious person, you’ll have to call support and ask them to delete him.

“I think delete person is evil, personally,” Ben said only half-jokingly. “It’s doing really bad stuff in the tree.” Deleting a real person can be a double-whammy (my description, not Ben’s). When you search for a person in the tree, including spouse and parent names is very powerful. When you delete a person’s spouse or parent, that person becomes harder to find. If the person is left with absolutely no relationships, they may never be found again. FamilySearch employees call such persons “dark matter.”

I had to leave early, so I didn’t get to hear the remainder of Ben’s presentation. I’m guessing he didn’t have time to finish all the material he prepared, but it is covered in his slides and syllabus. Let me call out a few more  guiding principles:

• Base your actions on verifiable sources.
• Provide good reason statements.
• Act on icons to achieve regular, small successes with the possibility of adding new persons to the tree.
• Contact support when you need to and ask to escalate if necessary.
• Report abuse if you believe someone is purposefully destroying data.
• Use the Watch List more effectively.
• Learn to understand and use the Change Log better.
• Read, maybe even subscribe to, the blog.
• Embrace change.
• Realize that some things are not fixable yet.

Well, that’s it for this year’s BYU Conference on Family History and Technology! It only took me a month to cover the small part of it that I attended. I leave you with this photo of conference bloggers, Jana Last, the Ancestry Insider, and Lynn Broderick.

Photo credit: random passerby.

My Family is all Messed Up on FamilySearch Family Tree – #BYUFHGC

Ben Baker spoke at the 2015 BYU Conference on Family History and Genealogy. His topic was “Help! My Family is all Messed Up on FamilySearch Family Tree.” Ben’s presentations are always packed with useful information and this was no exception. Fortunately, he posts his slides. You can see them for yourself at http://www.slideshare.net/bakers84/help-my-family-is-all-messed-up-on-familysearch-family-tree. This is the first of two articles recounting his remarks.

FamilySearch Family Tree is somewhat like a wiki. Anyone can make a change. Everyone sees the changes. It is maintained by volunteers. It’s free. It reduces duplication and encourages collaboration. Your research outlives you. You can link to photos, stories, and sources.

Ben posed the question, “If collaborative family trees are so great, how come everything is so
messed up?” To begin with, Family Tree was created from multiple kinds of sources. And Family Tree has imperfect patrons. It astounds him how “creative” people are when they make changes. “People do really crazy things. It never ceases to amaze me,” he said. The third factor is that FamilySearch has done things in the past to try to clean things up, and sometimes have made them worse.

There are three special usernames that frustrate users when they show up as a contributor in Family Tree. They sometimes introduce or re-introduce errors.

FamilySearch	This value means that a FamilySearch administrator, or an automated FamilySearch tool, has changed the information. This happens when someone at FamilySearch is fixing problems that can’t be fixed in any other way.
unknown4470317	This value indicates that Family Tree doesn’t know who the contributor was. On the slides Ben gave Pedigree Resource File contributions as an example. In his presentation, he mentioned the old four generation program (by which, I suppose he meant Ancestral File). I don’t think either of those are correct. I think Family Tree doesn’t know the identity of some contributors to the International Genealogical Index. When FamilySearch keyed in paper submissions to the IGI, they didn’t key in contributor or source information. This value exists for original contributors only; current contributors are all known.
LDS Church Membership	This value means that FamilySearch brought the information into Family Tree from the Church membership system. FamilySearch synchronizes Family Tree with the Church’s membership database on a regular basis.

When you call support, you get different tiers. The first tier consists of volunteer missionaries. They can escalate to  higher tiers. One of the higher levels is the Data Quality team. They can escalate bugs to the software developers; that’s when Ben would get involved. Ask support to escalate if the first tier is not able to solve your issue.

But things are getting better. There are hundreds of millions of sources attached to Family Tree. That is stabilizing things because people are less likely to make changes when there are lots of sources. People are merging duplicates; there are 40,000 merges per day and it has been as high as 50,000. Another sign that things are getting better is the reduced number of times that people undo merges. In the New FamilySearch tree, for every four combines, there was one separate. That was probably a sign that people were making incorrect combines. Today, there are about 30 to 1 merges to restores. Ben takes that as evidence that users feel like most merges are correct. And there are few reports of “edit wars.” That’s when two people disagree about a fact and constantly change it back and forth. There are some. Click the report abuse button if it is happening.

We’ll know Family Tree has “arrived” when it is the first place to go to find out about a historical person. “That’s not true today,” Ben admitted. We want people to say, “Wow, this is amazing. Why would I want to go make my own tree somewhere else?”

Stay tuned for more…

Powerful FamilySearch Partner Apps – #BYUFHGC

“Have you ever said to yourself, ‘If only FamilySearch would do this one thing?’ ” asked Jimmy Zimmerman, product manager for FamilySearch Family Tree. Jimmy spoke to the topic “Powerful Partner Apps for FamilySearch” at the 2015 BYU Conference on Family History and Genealogy.

“There are an infinite number of ideas out there,” Jimmy said, “and FamilySearch has finite resources.” But what if others could add features? Well, FamilySearch has something called an API which allows that.

[Insider’s note: An API is like a wall with holes in it set aside for particular actions. An app or website writes information on a piece of paper and, holding the paper in hand, sticks their hand through a specific hole in the wall. On the other side FamilySearch notices the hand sticking through the wall, reads the information on the piece of paper, writes a reply, and shoves the hand back through the wall. For example, an app might write a person identifier (PID) on a piece of paper and stick itthrough a hole labeled “fetch information about a person in Family Tree.” FamilySearch writes the information on the piece of paper and shoves the hand back through the hole.]

To use the API, companies must adhere to a strict set of rules. These are designed to protect the integrity of data in FamilySearch Family Tree and to guarantee best security practices. The rules are so voluminous they are jokingly referred to as “the tax code.” In the FamilySearch App Gallery, each app page indicates capabilities that the app can exercise within the information at FamilySearch.org. Writing and modifying Family Tree requires far more rules than just reading Family Tree.

Jimmy talked about finding available apps in the App Gallery. If you can’t find a way to get to the App Gallery, you can always go to FamilySearch.org/apps. Find apps by searching for the name or description, specifying category, filtering by platform (Windows, iPhone, web, etc.), price option (free, purchase, or subscription), free trial availability, language, FamilySearch capability (read-only, update), and if a FamilySearch login is required.

Some apps are listed without any certification. According to Jimmy, these have been found to be so helpful, FamilySearch lists them despite the lack of certification. He pointed out Ancestry.com’s Family Tree Maker as one example. An audience member asked when MyHeritage will be interacting with FamilySearch Family Tree. Jimmy said that while he couldn’t say, he could tell us it is in progress.

Users can rate apps and write reviews. Please leave reviews. It helps others find the really good apps and it encourages the developers to improve. If you find problems with an app, first contact the company. App reviews may not be a fair place to report problems, as the problems might actually be a FamilySearch API issue.

Some apps with high ratings are:

• Puzzilla: https://puzzilla.org
  
• Find-­‐A-­‐Record: https://www.findarecord.com
  
• Kinpoint: https://kinpoint.com
  
• Historic Journals: https://hjournals.com
  
• MooseRoots: http://www.mooseroots.com
  
• HistoryLines: https://historylines.com/familysearch.jsp
  
• Virtual Pedigree: http://virtual-­‐pedigree.fhtl.byu.edu
  
• Eternal Reminder: https://eternalreminder.com
  
• RelativeFinder: https://www.relativefinder.org
  
• MobileFamilyTree: https://itunes.apple.com/app/mobilefamilytree-­‐7/id609547919?ls=1&mt=8
  
• TenGenChart: http://www.tengenchart.com
  
• TreeSeek.com: https://treeseek.com

Jimmy demonstrated a few of the apps. Kinpoint was one that I had not seen before.

Kinpoint.com displays a fan chart, or Explorer Chart as they call it. Dots on the Explorer Chart are like a to-do list. They mark things like missing vital information, timeline issues, duplicates, lacking sources, and record hints, although some of these are available only with a subscription. The pane on the left displays information about the focus person. A summary pane on the right-hand side shows interesting facts about the persons displayed in the Explore chart, such as the number of countries of origin, number of children per family, youngest and oldest ages, and range of birth dates. Most of these are available only by subscription. Facts can be used to highlight persons on the chart according to available filters. For example, you could see all ancestors highlighted who were 25-30 years of age at the time of their death. The chart can show ancestors or descendants. The subscription features are available for free in a Family History Center.

Jimmy showed MooseRoots.com, a website with census and vital records. MooseRoots is a new company in the family history space, but has its roots in the ability to pull together lots of information. [Insider’s note: The parent company is the newly named Graphiq, a data visualization company, with many vertical search engines.] For example, their census records are married to aggregate census statistics, name origins and meanings, historical stock performance, historical place information, and economic data. [Insider’s note: Some of their data looks pretty rough, like the WWII army enlistment records for The first five names from Cache County, Utah are Edson Bcnson, On Roy Pehr, Meroill W Glevn, Grant C Jarsvn, and Eewzp Thompkwo. If I had to guess, I would say they used OCR on a typed or printed source. No images were available.]

Jimmy wanted to show us their Civil War Soldiers collection, but couldn’t find the link to it. I stumbled across it at http://civil-war-soldiers.findthebest.com/ after a lot of poking around. Graphiq has married the standard Civil War Soldiers database with information about the infantry, battles, and casualty counts.

The same section of the Graphiq website contains information about battles, generals, sailors, and war statistics. They credit the National Park Service for the data and Hal Jespersen (www.cwmaps.com) for the maps.