new FamilySearch Beta2 Complete

[rmrichesjr]

While the formatting and handling of the information on the two sides in NFS may not be the same as you may be familiar with, basically all the information is there for you to compare. For many things, the user is better than software at comparing. For example, for a place name (birth, for example), one side may show a mix of city,nation and county,nation while the other side shows city,county. A human with at least a little familiarity with the location in question can decided almost instantly whether they are the same. Because NFS shows all submitted entries for names, dates, and places, this kind of sort-of-fuzzy matching happens a lot.

Another cool thing I did not see in the screenshots is the way to compare related people who don't (yet) have the same PID. Let's say you're comparing two versions of Son Smith vs. Sonny Smith. The two sides of the compare-to-merge panel show Son/Sonny's dates, places, parents, spouse(s), and children. If you click on a name, say his parent Father Smith or Papa Smith, that panel/window splits into a top half and a bottom half. The top half is all the same information for Son/Sonny as before. The bottom half is split left vs. right, too. Now, you click on a name from the upper-left part, Father Smith for example, and it shows Father Smith's info in the lower left. You click on Papa Smith in the upper right, and it shows Papa Smith's info in the lower right. This lets you compare in more detail the parents, spouse(s), and children of the records you're considering merging. I found it to be useful and believe it will be very useful in hard-to-decide cases.

[scion-p40]

Your comparison only addresses people and places. That is consistent with other descriptions that I have read and concerns me greatly. What about all of the other info in the database? I want to see --- side by side verically, so I can readily compare details line by line --- my various notes & sources. Some families choose from such a small selection of names that the notes are vital to determine one line from another.

[rmrichesjr]

You will be able to see much of what it sounds like you want to see. I have definitely seen things like life events, titles, and such in the main comparison panel. I did not specifically look for notes, because most of the existing records I saw in the system did not appear to have much in the way of notes. Of course, as diligent researchers upload GEDCOMS or enter data with notes and sources, that will change, and more notes and sources will be in the database.

I don't remember specifically testing bringing up the lower-half of the panel on the person being merged, but provided that works it would give you access to all the other individual details and other tabs to compare.

Worst case, you could make a note of the PIDs of the records being combined, go to those PIDs in the main window, and look at all the info on them one at a time.

As I have mentioned before, if the basic web-based system isn't entirely to your liking, the NFS API and open-source desktop record manager(s) will give opportunity to make a system that works as well as you want it to. My suspicion is the open-source record manager is going to end up being the method by which many of future enhancements make it into NFS as time goes on.

[garysturn]

When you compare to merge, all the vital information is there. NFS (newFamilySearch) does not combine information, it links it together, so any notes and sources are added as additional information.

The API will allow programs like Legacy to add functions to their software to work with the NFS data, so you may be able to do all your work on NFS directly in a future version of Legacy, Family Tree Maker or some other desktop program, without ever needing to go to FamilySearch.

[russellhltn]

Here are some screen shots of the Merging: Screens More Screens

All I see are a bunch of Red Xs.

Edit: Now I'm getting "Undergoing maintenance". Must be something with the web site.

[JamesAnderson]

Those two links are working for me now as far as the slideshows, so what was not working?

[russellhltn]

Your comparison only addresses people and places. That is consistent with other descriptions that I have read and concerns me greatly. What about all of the other info in the database? I want to see --- side by side verically, so I can readily compare details line by line --- my various notes & sources. Some families choose from such a small selection of names that the notes are vital to determine one line from another.

Did you see this screen shot (top half) and this one (bottom half)? If you click on the Contributed By, I think you can get the details on the sources.

[russellhltn]

Those two links are working for me now as far as the slideshows, so what was not working?

Working fine now. Site must have been down.

[rmrichesjr]

Did you see this screen shot (top half) and this one (bottom half)? If you click on the Contributed By, I think you can get the details on the sources.

As much as I'd like to help the poster seeking access to sources while comparing, I'm not sure this will suffice. During the beta, whenever I clicked on 'Contributed by', I got only a list of the people who had contributed the data, not the real _sources_ such as whether the birthdate came from a government birth certificate, a church birth record, or (a hypothetical) Aunt Sally's failing memory.

However, I do think we will be able to get at that information in at least one of several ways that I think I already mentioned.

[russellhltn]

During the beta, whenever I clicked on 'Contributed by', I got only a list of the people who had contributed the data, not the real _sources_ such as whether the birthdate came from a government birth certificate, a church birth record, or (a hypothetical) Aunt Sally's failing memory.

I think that may have been a limitation of the Beta. Of all the databases pulled from, only PRF allowed anyone to say what the real source was. Had you pulled from another NFS user you probably would see their source notes.