Tech Forum

Let me start with the basics. Much of the information in nFS that I have encounters in contributed by legacy contributors. When you try to view the contact information for a legacy contributor you will see a link to "Declare This Legacy Contributor as Yourself". I now have claimed the contributions from five legacy contributors. This allows me to edit and correct incorrect information instead of merely contesting it.

Now on to the advanced stuff. I tried to claim the contributions of the legacy contributor identified as unknown4470317. I got this response from support:

Dear Albin:

This is an automated response to your recent request to claim a legacy contribution. Unfortunately your request cannot be fulfilled. The unknown ID, 4470317, identifies a generic contributor applied to thousands of temple records during a time when the name of the contributor was not preserved. If your claim were to be accepted, you would become the contact name for all of those temple records, which of course, would not be good. You will not be able to edit any record with the unknown ID 4470317. However, you may add another opinion or dispute any incorrect information in any of these records.

Thank you for using New FamilySearch. We wish you success and satisfaction in your personal family history efforts.

Sincerely,
FamilySearch Support

Ok they have a point there. I really don't want to be the contact person for all those thousands of temple records. I'm probably flattering myself to think that some measurable fraction of that data has anything to do will my family lines.

This leads to my first proposal. We need to be able to search by contributor. This is further illustrated in my next example.

One of the contributors on a portion of my family lines is a man who I know of; he was a professional genealogist who was hired by a distant cousin back in the 1970's. My family inherited the several large books that were the result of his work for this distant cousin. I am working on claiming the data contributed by my distant cousin (who is dead and had no descendants). But some information was submitted directly by the genealogist. I would like to claim that as well, but I don't know and can't tell if he has other contributions that would come with it. I don't want to claim something that he did for another client. So again I need to be able to search by contributor.

My second proposal derives from these two examples. Suppose, for the sake of discussion, that this genealogist (who is deceased now) had two unrelated customers and submitted 1000 names for each one. If I were able to search by contributor I would discover 2000 names contributed. A little bit more research and I would know which 1000 of his contributions belonged in my family. There should be a way to split the block of 2000 contributions so that I can claim the parts that have something to do with my family and let someone else claim the part that belongs in their family. I think this would probably function best as chipping off pieces of the block (2 to 10 individuals at a time?) and claiming small parts of it as they are found. This is even more applicable for the unknown4470317 legacy contributor. It is already known that unknown4470317 doesn't represent a real person. We need a way to claim only a potion of the contributions of a legacy contributor.

Albin wrote:... We need to be able to search by contributor...We need a way to claim only a portion of the contributions of a legacy contributor.

Sounds like a good idea. I would recommend that you submit this information to feedback in newFamilySearch. I would not expect this request to receive a real high priority right now but at some point in the future I am sure they will consider some method for claiming unclaimed submissions. The highest priority right now will be getting the minimum functions working well enough to get the program rolled out to the entire Church and to the general public, then they can work on refining things like this.

Albin wrote:Let me start with the basics. Much of the information in nFS that I have encounters in contributed by legacy contributors. When you try to view the contact information for a legacy contributor you will see a link to "Declare This Legacy Contributor as Yourself". I now have claimed the contributions from five legacy contributors. This allows me to edit and correct incorrect information instead of merely contesting it.

I would add a disclaimer that this should be done only if you are in fact the contributer or if you would be the proper successor of a deceased contributer.

For those searching for contributors, I have found a workaround, but even that is a bit cumbersome.

When looking at two individuals on the comparison screen, take a look at the contributors. That does not always show one because often it will say 'Multiple' in that line. Its when you look at the multiple listing by clicking on that word where you will find all the like contributions.

I had one come up the other night. Both sides were ambiguous, although there was enough information that wa similar to tentatively declare it a match. The clincher was the submitter list, it turns out the two differing entries for that person were submitted by the same individual. I was able to combine the two records just on that information.

JamesAnderson wrote:For those searching for contributors, I have found a workaround, but even that is a bit cumbersome.

When looking at two individuals on the comparison screen, take a look at the contributors. That does not always show one because often it will say 'Multiple' in that line. Its when you look at the multiple listing by clicking on that word where you will find all the like contributions.

I had one come up the other night. Both sides were ambiguous, although there was enough information that wa similar to tentatively declare it a match. The clincher was the submitter list, it turns out the two differing entries for that person were submitted by the same individual. I was able to combine the two records just on that information.

Just because the submitter is the same does not mean that two people with similar data are the same individuals. I have some lines who select from *very* limited names. Brothers on farms side-by-side having children and giving them the same names can make research confusing. Also, some folks give the name of a deceased child to the next child. There are plenty of reasons to dig deeper.

You have a Jeremiah Brown as being a father to Benjamin Brown born 1747 N. Kingstown, RI. (married Waite Reynolds). I am a direct descendant of the Brown line and your data cannot possibly be correct. My email address is shipmanm@mounties.mansfield.edu

Please check your data and email me with the results. Thanks

Michael

shipmanm wrote:You have a Jeremiah Brown as being a father to Benjamin Brown born 1747 N. Kingstown, RI. (married Waite Reynolds). I am a direct descendant of the Brown line and your data cannot possibly be correct. My email address is shipmanm@mounties.mansfield.edu

Please check your data and email me with the results. Thanks

The chance of the person associated with the username "unknown4470317" communicating with you is exactly zero. First of all, contributors to New FamilySearch don't tend to frequent this forum -- they are much more likely to participate in genealogy-related forums such as the FamilySearch Forums. But the biggest reason you won't get a response is given in the first post of this thread: "The unknown ID, 4470317, identifies a generic contributor applied to thousands of temple records during a time when the name of the contributor was not preserved." There is no actual person connected to such contributions.

Incorrect data and relationships in the New FamilySearch Database (NFS) submitted by persons (or entities) with no contact information can be corrected by submitting a SUPPORT CASE to NFS describing which data and/or relationships need to be corrected. You need to include your relationship to the principals and cite your evidence.

To create a support case:
Login to NFS
Click: Send us feedback > Report a problem > Send us a message > Choose New FamilySearch, and enter the description and details.

If the submitter of the erroneous information has contact information in NFS, then you should contact the submitter and request that they update the information.

If unknown4470317 represents a contribution submitted long before they kept track of who submitted things, how is it that only two days ago 8/26/14 unknown4470317 submitted a note to one of my ancestors records?

MikeMallett wrote:If unknown4470317 represents a contribution submitted long before they kept track of who submitted things, how is it that only two days ago 8/26/14 unknown4470317 submitted a note to one of my ancestors records?

My guess is that it's a note that is over on new.familysearch.org, which wasn't really a new note, but is simply an old note that was just recently synced to Family Tree. Over the last couple of months we've seen all sorts of "new" sources attached to Family Tree that are legacy sources from new.familysearch.org. In preparation for the eventual shutdown of new.familysearch.org, everything of possible value that is over there that has not yet been moved to Family Tree is gradually being moved.