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FamilySearch comes of age

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FamilySearch comes of age

https://t.co/2do1nmRZq1

In the last couple of years FamilySearch has completely changed the
way I do my genealogy research. I now spend most of my research time
comparing records in FamilySearch with what I already have, and
reconstituting families from FamilySearch data.

It wasn't always like this.

FamilySearch has had its ups and down over the years, and sometimes
useful features have been withdrawn and not replaced for some time.
There are remnants of that in a poll in the sidebar of this blog. One
useful feature recently withdrawn was the "Search Results", which I
hope returns before long.

But what makes FamilySearch more useful now is its integration with
programs like RootsMagic and Legacy Family Tree.

The main hindrance to this usefulness is the "My Tree" attitude of
many genealogists. There are many web sites that allow you to put your
family tree on line where it can be seen by others. Some are static,
and are difficult to update. Others are dynamic. But most of them are
not collaborative. And people who have become used to that model are
suspicious of collaborative projects like FamilySearch, because they
don't like the idea of anybody else changing anything in "My Tree".

In the days when Ancestry.com had a free version called Mundia, I used
to refer to it quite a lot. It followed the "My Tree" model, and so
you could find multiple versions of the same family on line. It also
encouraged people to uncritically copy information to their own tree
from others' trees. This uncritical copying often resulted in errors
being multiplied. The majority was not always right. An inaccurate
tree could be copied 10 times, and the accurate version could be
copied only once or twice. You could follow the majority version, but
it would be wrong. For some examples, see Jane Ellwood and the perils
of online family trees, and Three Agnes Ellwoods -- Tombstone Tuesday.

FamilySearch still lets you have your tree, which no one else can
alter. But the place for your tree is on your computer. You alone
decide if you want to copy information from FamilySearch to your
computer, so nobody else can alter your tree. But you can also share
your research with others by copying information from your tree to
FamilySearch.

So this is what I do now.

I look at my "Research" file on my computer, which is a copy of my
"Main" file (where I keep mainly verified information). The Research
file is more speculative, where I add possible links to be followed
and verified later and so on.

I find a family that I have not looked at for some time, and check it
with FamilySearch, comparing the two records side by side.

Sometimes I find someone has added information that I did not have --
parents of s spouse, for example. If they look likely I copy them to
my Research file (not to my Main file at this stage).

I then click on the link to FamilySearch in my genealogy program and
log in to FamilySearch on my web browser. That brings up the same
family. For each member of the family there FamilySearch may bring up
"Research Hints". These are the best research hints in the business.
The suggestions are not always accurate, but in my experience they are
right about 80% of the time.

For example, it may suggest a link to the person in one or more
censuses. You are then offered the opportunity to attach the census
record to that person as a source. That will also create a "Residence"
event for that person in FamilySearch, which you can also copy to your
own tree on your computer if you wish. The census records are often
transcriptions, so need to be taken with a pinch of salt. There may be
mistranscriptions and spelling errors, but you can make a note of
these.

You may find that someone has already attached this source to another
person. There are then three possibilities. One is that they have
attached to to the wrong person. Another is that they have attached it
to the right person but it is not the person you are looking for. A
third, and the most common, is that the person they have attached it
to is a duplicate of the person you want to attach it to. If that is
the case, FamilySearch offers you the possibility of merging the
duplicate people.

If you are sure that they are the same person, merge them. If you have
doubts, you can contact the person who attached the record to discuss
it with them. FamilySearch has a research trail, showing every change
made by anyone, so that you can contact other users (sometimes a
long-lost cousin). When you register to use FamilySearch, your record
contains your contact information, which can include your e-mail
address. I recommend that you include that, so that people can contact
you about shared family members.

There is also, both on the FamilySearch web site and in the programs
that link to it, a place where you can have discussions about problems
relating to a particular person in your tree. Thus you can query
information that someone else has added, that you think may not be
accurate, or you can query discrepancies in records.

There are things to be careful of. For example, FamilySearch has lots
of church baptism records from the Church of England. These have been
transcribed from microfilms of the original registers, and sometimes
two or more microfilms were made of the same register. The microfilms
and the transcriptions made from them, vary in quality. One particular
error is that the transcriber often included as a "Residence" the
location of the parish where a baptism took place, rather than one
taken from the "Abode" field in the register.  Where this is apparent
I usually don't copy the "residence" information, and am careful about
assuming that the place of baptism was the place of birth. Sometimes a
census will show that the date of birth was different. This is the
kind of thing you can add to the "Discussion" field.

In working like this with FamilySearch I'm usually adding several new
people to my family tree each day, even if they are only seventh
cousins. I am also organising scattered individuals on FamilySearch
into families, which helps make it more useful for other members. And
there's more than enough there to keep me busy for the rest of my
life.

One of the questions that sometimes bothers genealogists is what
happens to their research when they die, especially if no one in their
immediate family is interested. But if you share your research on
FamilySearch, it is there for others to make use of and add to, long
after you are dead.

So drop the "My Tree" approach, and rather join the larger human
family. 

Source: https://t.co/2do1nmRZq1 
-- 
Steve Hayes
Web: http://hayesgreene.wordpress.com/
     http://hayesgreene.blogspot.com
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/afgen/
     

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FamilySearch comes of age Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> - 2018-04-16 06:47 +0200
  Re: FamilySearch comes of age Eagle@bellsouth.net (J. Hugh Sullivan) - 2018-04-16 11:36 +0000
    Re: FamilySearch comes of age Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> - 2018-04-17 07:48 +0200
      Re: FamilySearch comes of age Eagle@bellsouth.net (J. Hugh Sullivan) - 2018-04-17 12:24 +0000
        Re: FamilySearch comes of age "J. P. Gilliver (John)" <G6JPG-255@255soft.uk> - 2018-04-17 17:40 +0100
          Re: FamilySearch comes of age Eagle@bellsouth.net (J. Hugh Sullivan) - 2018-04-17 18:12 +0000
  Re: FamilySearch comes of age knuttle <keith_nuttle@sbcglobal.net> - 2018-04-16 07:49 -0400
    Re: FamilySearch comes of age "J. P. Gilliver (John)" <G6JPG-255@255soft.uk> - 2018-04-16 17:34 +0100
      Re: FamilySearch comes of age Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> - 2018-04-17 09:25 +0200
        Re: FamilySearch comes of age Jenny M Benson <nemonews@hotmail.co.uk> - 2018-04-17 10:38 +0100
          Re: FamilySearch comes of age "J. P. Gilliver (John)" <G6JPG-255@255soft.uk> - 2018-04-17 11:11 +0100
            Re: FamilySearch comes of age Jenny M Benson <nemonews@hotmail.co.uk> - 2018-04-17 12:17 +0100
          Re: FamilySearch comes of age Eagle@bellsouth.net (J. Hugh Sullivan) - 2018-04-17 12:38 +0000
          Re: FamilySearch comes of age Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> - 2018-04-17 19:33 +0200
        Re: FamilySearch comes of age "J. P. Gilliver (John)" <G6JPG-255@255soft.uk> - 2018-04-17 10:59 +0100
          Re: FamilySearch comes of age Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> - 2018-04-17 19:53 +0200
            Re: FamilySearch comes of age Eagle@bellsouth.net (J. Hugh Sullivan) - 2018-04-17 18:19 +0000
              Re: FamilySearch comes of age Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> - 2018-04-18 05:34 +0200
            Re: FamilySearch comes of age "J. P. Gilliver (John)" <G6JPG-255@255soft.uk> - 2018-04-17 20:36 +0100
              Re: FamilySearch comes of age Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> - 2018-04-18 05:43 +0200
    Re: FamilySearch comes of age "catalpa" <catalpa@entertab.org> - 2018-04-16 21:06 -0400
  Re: FamilySearch comes of age Doug Laidlaw <laidlaws@hotkey.net.au> - 2018-04-17 02:48 +1000
    Re: FamilySearch comes of age Keith Nuttle <Keith_Nuttle@sbcglobal.net> - 2018-04-16 13:25 -0400
  Re: FamilySearch comes of age Ian Goddard <goddai01@hotmail.co.uk> - 2018-04-17 13:14 +0100
    Re: FamilySearch comes of age "J. P. Gilliver (John)" <G6JPG-255@255soft.uk> - 2018-04-17 17:40 +0100
      Re: FamilySearch comes of age Charles Ellson <ce11son@yahoo.ca> - 2018-04-18 21:37 +0100
        Re: FamilySearch comes of age Jim Dell <James.Dell@SBCGlobal.net> - 2018-04-20 14:56 -0400

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