new FamilySearch merging

[rmrichesjr]

Would there be an easy way to merge someone else's entire tree with your own without having to approve the merge of completely identical records? I don't really want our trees disintegrating into a bunch of fragmented pieces instead of one nice whole.

The downloading part is still going to be fairly critical for us too as sometimes you need an offline copy of the whole tree when you're in remote places doing research.

I don't know all the details about automatic merging when uploading whole files, but at least some of the process _is_ automatic. I uploaded a GEDCOM file with 8 people in it. The system reports that all 8 were added as new individuals, but I don't believe I had to manually merge all 8. Then, I uploaded the same GEDCOM file again but with more sources and notes, and it automatically merged in 5 of the 8 people. The other three were trivial to merge, if anything actually needed to be done.

Does that help at all?

[garysturn]

Would there be an easy way to merge someone else's entire tree with your own without having to approve the merge of completely identical records? I don't really want our trees disintegrating into a bunch of fragmented pieces instead of one nice whole.

The downloading part is still going to be fairly critical for us too as sometimes you need an offline copy of the whole tree when you're in remote places doing research.

I don't believe downloading from new FamilySearch (NFS) will be part of the original release, however the current FamilySearch will be running at the same time and some downloading can be done there. New submissions will be the only info not available to download. When NFS is released it will consist of Church Membership records, Temple Ordinance Index (IGI), Ancestral File (The old Four Generation program), Pedigree Resource File, and any other indexes that are now part of FamilySearch. You can download from most of these databases either at the Family History Centers (FHC) or online.

All these databases will have the names linked together in NFS. There is a lot of undocumented information in some of these files. The hope is to get everyone working together to document and clean up this information and prevent so much duplication of effort.

The only files that I know of that can be merged in PAF automatically are identical records with the same Ancestral File Number (AFN), so if you use the merge by AFN option, PAF can auto merge those records. When you download someone else's entire database you can compare that file with yours side by side, record by record and just select the information you want to move to your record using "PAF Insight", this program is available at most FHC's to use and is available to purchase online. Do a Google search for "PAF Insight" for more info.

When people come into the FHC the first step in helping people get started doing family history work is to get together what their family has done and what the Church already has. So a lot of people are spending hours downloading and matching and merging to get to a starting point. The next step I do is have people start verifying the information that they do not have sources for, so a lot of people are having to relocate sources because most of the databases do not include the source citations, a lot of time can be saved once this process is moved online and you can see sources that someone has already docummented. Unfortunatly a lot of people skip this step and start running the downloaded names through TempleReady and redoing work that has been done since TempleReady was last updated (2000). In our FHC all the workers know to check all Temple submissions against the online IGI, which is up to date, but there are a lot of FHC's in the world and a lot of people can use the computers and TempleReady without assistance, so a lot of temple work gets repeated. This new system is designed to stop that problem. They stopped updating TempleReady expecting this new system to come online, but it is taking a lot longer to get it working than many expected.

[garysturn]

I don't know all the details about automatic merging when uploading whole files, but at least some of the process _is_ automatic. I uploaded a GEDCOM file with 8 people in it. The system reports that all 8 were added as new individuals, but I don't believe I had to manually merge all 8. Then, I uploaded the same GEDCOM file again but with more sources and notes, and it automatically merged in 5 of the 8 people. The other three were trivial to merge, if anything actually needed to be done.

Does that help at all?

I believe I read somewhere that unique numbers are assigned to names in new FamilySearch so when you resubmit a name that has that same number it can be combined.

[garysturn]

Not sure how much I like the everything being public too. The quality of data in my PAF file varies greatly. Some of it I don't think could be any more solid, other data though is closer to "research notes" than it is something I'd consider even half way accurate. I guess I wouldn't want someone using my possible "trash" data, or marking it up with a bunch of notes about how it's wrong (which wouldn't be a surprise - however pointers to good data would obviously be appreciated, but that could just as easily be found if they saw the missing branch on my tree instead of some questionable data).

I totaly agree, I do not encourage patrons at our FHC to submit info without sources. You can create a GEDCOM of the good info and send that in. I also have a lot of info in my PAF files that I have downloaded for Ancestral File and other Databases that I have not located sources for yet. I will only be submitting my sourced information. Most of the info I have download will already be part of "new FamilySearch" (NFS) anyway, whether it is accurate or not because Ancestral File and Pedigree Resource File will be linked there.

Our families records need a lot of the sources moved from notes to sources, so we have a lot of work to do to clean up our info. That is the kind of thing that NFS will be good for. I have relatives asking me all the time "What can I do?". When NFS is out, I can tell them to go to the notes look up the sources and get images of the records and enter the citations into Sources and e-mail me the images so we will have them all together and ready to attach to the source citations when that feature is added in a later version. We have family web sites now where we post some of our source images.

[blackrg]

Right. I'll confess that at some stages I've been known to export it all to GEDCOM, use Perl to manipulate the GEDCOMs to where I want them, and then reimport. PAF, while good, is still lacking a lot of features that really wouldn't be that difficult to add. PAF does have a unique serial number option itself though.

[blackrg]

I totaly agree, I do not encourage patrons at our FHC to submit info without sources. You can create a GEDCOM of the good info and send that in.

That's kind of the whole problem though, I was hoping to be able to use the online site as my primary means of working on the data and coordinating with family members, while only occasionally exporting to PAF or some such for offline research and then merging back in. Now if want to prevent garbage info in a public repository it sounds like I won't be able to do that.

Our families records need a lot of the sources moved from notes to sources, so we have a lot of work to do to clean up our info. That is the kind of thing that NFS will be good for. I have relatives asking me all the time "What can I do?". When NFS is out, I can tell them to go to the notes look up the sources and get images of the records and enter the citations into Sources

If there's "your data" and "their data" though without any real way of marking it as some sort of group effort, how do you get all of that into once nice complete file/area/repository/etc. without them using your account to make the modifications?

and e-mail me the images so we will have them all together and ready to attach to the source citations when that feature is added in a later version. We have family web sites now where we post some of our source images.

I guess I would think when they bring this online you would be able to do specific types of source citations, like for example a citation of the 1880 census would link directly to an online copy of the 1880 census and the particular page in question. If so, then your images will only get in the way there as they'll be more of the "external source, imaged attached" sort of deal (for what it's worth I collect images or copies as the case may be of relevant census pages too ).

[russellhltn]

I don't know all the details about automatic merging when uploading whole files, but at least some of the process _is_ automatic.

PAF has a hidden uniquely assigned number. When importing, if PAF (and presumably the new FS) sees that same unique ID, it knows it's the same individual without having to compare the person's data.

So if your upload came from the same PAF file, that's probably why. But if someone were to submit the same data hand typed into another program, it wouldn't auto merge because it's either missing that unique ID or has a different one.

[rmrichesjr]

If there's "your data" and "their data" though without any real way of marking it as some sort of group effort, how do you get all of that into once nice complete file/area/repository/etc. without them using your account to make the modifications?
.

In the new FamilySearch, anyone can add information about stuff already there. If somebody added a fact of some sort, someone else can add a source to it after the fact. In the beta system, I just added a (bogus) source for a birth event for someone I had not previously contributed any data. I clicked on the 'edit' link for the event, then clicked 'Add Other Opinion' and added the source information. It did not create a new event but now lists my source. Of course, it lists me as a contributor to the birth event too, but that is at least arguably correct.

[garysturn]

That's kind of the whole problem though, I was hoping to be able to use the online site as my primary means of working on the data and coordinating with family members, while only occasionally exporting to PAF or some such for offline research and then merging back in. Now if want to prevent garbage info in a public repository it sounds like I won't be able to do that.

If there's "your data" and "their data" though without any real way of marking it as some sort of group effort, how do you get all of that into once nice complete file/area/repository/etc. without them using your account to make the modifications?

I guess I would think when they bring this online you would be able to do specific types of source citations, like for example a citation of the 1880 census would link directly to an online copy of the 1880 census and the particular page in question. If so, then your images will only get in the way there as they'll be more of the "external source, imaged attached" sort of deal (for what it's worth I collect images or copies as the case may be of relevant census pages too ).

If you submit work in progress you can always remove it if it turns out to be incorrect. You could put in notes that it is work in progress.

Everything is linked together as one name with many contribuitors and is updated as a group effort. Everyone can work on that name and add sources to that name, the sources added will show the person who entered the source as the contributor. You won't have your own work area, anyone can contribute.

It will take up to 7 years to scan and index all the Chruch microfilms, until then links to online images on personal web pages will be helpful. We can add link info in source comments but until web links are available people will have to copy and paste the link into their browser.

[rmrichesjr]

If you submit work in progress you can always remove it if it turns out to be incorrect. You could put in notes that it is work in progress.

I recall one of the training overviews saying that work-in-progress data should be put in the database, and that the whole database is or should be considered a work in progress. (My comment: After all, it's not going to be complete and flawless until probably somewhere close to a thousand years from now. 1/2