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Thursday, February 6, 2014

#RootsTech 2014 -- Ron Tanner on FamilySearch Family Tree What's New etc.

This presentation was shown live over the Internet and will be recorded and available only RootsTech.org.

Ron Tanner starts his presentation with our common ancestor, Henry Martin Tanner, he talks about the fact that there may be two people with very similar names and dates but they are not the same person.

The question is why FamilySearch.org Family Tree? You shouldn't be out there looking for your ancestors all by yourself. We need a place where we can work together to find common ancestors. But there is a problem with My-Tree-itus. We do not own our ancestors. Take everyone's best and put it into one family tree. This is exactly what Family Tree is. It is a place where we can really work together. Yes, we have to change the way we do genealogy. People are playing genealogy like playing Go Fish. Up to 80% of all research is duplicated. We need to overcome our tendency to "own" our research. When we all work together we can do amazing things.

Family Tree by the numbers. 310,000 unique visitors a week.  500,000 conclusions per week. 320,000 new people added every week. Better merging is happening. 1 out of every combines were undone in NFS. In FT it is only 1 out of a 100. There are now more than 12,000,000 sources. There are about 320,000 new sources every week.

A you a good online FT citizen. Be objective. Be courteous. Be patient. If you edit share your email. Don't make changes because you "know," use sources. Rarely delete a person. Don't guess when merging. Do your homework. If the person is not the same then mark "Not-a-Match." Don't over merge.

You need to use FT. You are wasting time if you don't use Family Tree. Family Tree continues to Evolve. Notable Features of 2013.

  • Search Records - look up individual in the Historical Record Collections
  • Attach Photo or Document to Sources
  • Preferred Parents and Spouses
  • Display Child Relationship Types -- will be shown in family view
  • Report Abuse
Everyone is working the same place. The program still does not fix IOUS failed merges. This is due to NFS limits or timeouts. The system is still changes NFS. What about fixing wrongly combined records in NFS? There is only one place in FT for each person. Many records improperly combined in NFS can be separated.

Do not delete wrong relationships, edit the relationships. 

What's coming?

Mobile iOs and Android apps for working with Family Tree.
Living in Family Tree - Life Sketch, Edit Vitals, Sources, Change Log
Share your tree with others so you can work together
Record hinting - find matching records automatically - possibly matching records
Decendancy View - See descendants of an ancestor

Come Join Us At Family Tree -- Be part of a genealogy revolution. Let FT be the world's genealogy


2 comments:

  1. Where your notes quote "..1 out of every combines were undone in NFS..."

    I believe it should read "...1 out of every four combines were undone in NFS..." I think the time code for these stats is at about 5 hours and 39 minutes into today's streamed content.

    --Randy

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  2. Thanks very much for your timely updates! They are informative and much appreciated, as are all the posts on your blog. Keep up the good work!

    ReplyDelete