Tech Forum

I was looking at some of the members in the new family search program. People like Joseph Smith. Their information is all out of whack. There's duplicate names, errors in Joseph Smith senior and so forth. Is if no one has touched the information. I was going to go through and clean it up but i thought this would be something the developers can handle instead. They might need to assign someone to clean up all the info nicely instead of waiting for members like me to do it. Thanks

falisrm wrote:I was looking at some of the members in the new family search program. People like Joseph Smith. Their information is all out of whack. There's duplicate names, errors in Joseph Smith senior and so forth. Is if no one has touched the information. I was going to go through and clean it up but i thought this would be something the developers can handle instead. They might need to assign someone to clean up all the info nicely instead of waiting for members like me to do it. Thanks

I can't speak for Joseph and his decendants, but the main reason why President Hinckley asked for the creation of New Family Search (NFS) is to help the member track their own ancestors and eliminate duplicate temple work that is occuring. The previous system - Temple Ready - didn't have enough protections to eliminate duplicate work.

One of the primary tasks that a member has when they first begin using the NFS system is to review their own ancestors and check for duplicate entries. Once they confirm that a series of duplicates exists then the member can merge those duplicate records.

After this step is accomplished then the member can confirm whether any temple work still needs to be completed and can submit it.

right, i just wanted the church to be aware that these official documents get cleaned up. I won't touch them and i hope other members won't either.

falisrm wrote:right, i just wanted the church to be aware that these official documents get cleaned up. I won't touch them and i hope other members won't either.

I would recommend that you use the feedback feature of NFS to communicate your concerns. There's no guarantee that the individuals with whom you are attempting to contact are monitoring this forum.

Thanks for your concern and interest.

oh ya, i didn't even think to use that. I only remembered this forum. thanks

One issue, of course, is the low number of JS descendants in the LDS Church, what with so many ending up with the currently-CoC.

I remember there was a while ago a somewhat less-publicized incident of the first confirmed JS descendant getting baptized a member of the Church. I can't remember the name, and it's irrelevant, anyhow, but they would be the ones who should be notified, I guess. I am assuming the Church leaders know who they are.

Presumably it would help them them appreciate the history of their ancestors, too - as FH does in general, but in this case I think there is a particular poignancy to it.

Á propos, do the NFS staff follow these forums (it would make some kind of sense to me)? I have learned long ago, that the fact that something seems obvious to me, doesn't mean it does to others. That's why I ask stupid questions... This thread appears to be in the General Discussion rather than in the Family History subcategory in Current and Future Church Technologies - but then it's not a technology issue per se.

Here you see my bean-counter/DB planner/whatever background: I always end up talking about categorization...

velska wrote:Á propos, do the NFS staff follow these forums (it would make some kind of sense to me)?

Not that I've noticed.

velska wrote:That's why I ask stupid questions... This thread appears to be in the General Discussion rather than in the Family History subcategory in Current and Future Church Technologies - but then it's not a technology issue per se.

Good point - and fixed.

Just like to mention, as one with ancestors who crossed the plains, for many of them, the number of records and the quantity of junk already in nFS makes resolving the records properly a task more daunting than feasible given the current tool set. I continue to monitor the progress of the new tools, and hope for a time where

a) the process for recognizing duplication is improved (see Standard Finder at labs.familysearch.org) enough to automatically collapse many of the matching dates and places

b) the process for sorting and unlinking individuals with many erroneous cross-linked folders is able to handle the large number of duplicates

c) a way to lock or otherwise 'save' a completed individual is introduced, such that hours of hard work unwinding a 'promintent' member won't be lost as the first new relative wanders through punching 'merge' buttons.

I think most of these items have already been raised and discussed in depth; just wanted to offer them as a more concise listing of what is preventing me from diving into cleaning up the records of people who are prominent folks from Church history. Yes, we have fairly good versions of what the proper family relations should look like; no, it's not a simple task to get from where the nFS records are to where we'd like them to be.

Rick Parker
San Antonio, TX

I just want to point out that there are some forums dedicated to FamilySearch in addition to these forums:

http://forums.familysearchsupport.org/index.php

However, I can't tell if it's only for Old FamilySearch, or if it also includes the New FamilySearch in it's scope.

mkmurray wrote:I just want to point out that there are some forums dedicated to FamilySearch in addition to these forums:

http://forums.familysearchsupport.org/index.php

However, I can't tell if it's only for Old FamilySearch, or if it also includes the New FamilySearch in it's scope.

These forums are Research Forums and do not provide product support except for the Research Wiki and the Research Forum. Hopefully a product support forum will be added soon.