Genealogy Live and Unrehearsed from Goldie May

 

Goldie May Genealogy Research Live and Unrehearsed

Richard Miller, the developer of the Goldie May research app, and I have joined together to present actual, live, unrehearsed genealogy research. Each episode will address a rather different and difficult research issue. This first episode looks at an end-of-line problem with a family in pre-1850 Kentucky and Indiana. The discussion shows how and where the issues are addressed and suggests sources for resolving the issues. You can subscribe to the channel to view each episode as they occur. Of course, the episodes feature using the Goldie May app to assist in identifying and resolving, if at all possible, the challenge in each episode. 

How do you compare the holdings of the online genealogy database programs?

 

How do you compare apples and oranges? The answer to this question is much easier than comparing any two of the large online genealogy/family tree programs. Let me start with Ancestry.com as an example. 

Back on May 12, 2012, I wrote a blog post entitled "10,000,000,000 Records?" Here is a quote from that blog post.

First, I need to talk about collections. By latest count, Ancestry.com has 30,671 collections that are listed in their World Edition. In contrast, for example, FamilySearch.org, as of 12 May 2012, has 1146 collections. However, as I have written before in this blog, the designation "collection" when referring to genealogical records has no commonly understood meaning.

On FamilySearch.org, a collection can be anything from a little over 1000 records in the Arizona, Civil War Service Records of Confederate Soldiers, 1861-1865 to over 90 million records in the United States Social Security Death Index. The same thing holds true on Ancestry.com. If they are counting their Public Member Trees, then there are 2,107,016,069 records listed in that collection alone and way down at the end of Ancestry.com's list is the tiny "The Stone Family Association, 1910" with one record.

Hmm. How does that compare to figures from 2022? Quick math (even within my capabilities) says that it was ten years ago. Looking at Ancestry.com on the date of this post, I see that the card catalog has listed 33,141 collections. That is an increase (my math again) of 2,470 collections in the last ten years. The largest Ancestry collection in the card catalog is still Public Member Trees with 1,895,402,199 which is a drop of 211,613,870 trees. Hmm, again. Also, about 26,000 of those "collections" have less than 1,000 records. Also, about 23,000 of those collections have less than 500 records and I could just keep going until I got to those with less than 10 records which occurs in about 1,166 collections. I guess my conclusion is the same as it was 10 years ago, the number of collections is meaningless. 

What about FamilySearch? Oh, they had 1146 collections in 2012. As of the date of this post, FamilySearch lists 3,089 collections but that is only in the Historical Record Collections of indexed records. There is no count available for those collections in the Catalog or Images. Again, the numbers are mostly meaningless. 

My measure is simple. If you find the record you are looking for, then the website is very useful. If you don't find the record you are looking for, the website is less useful. Negative results do have some value. 

Each of the large genealogy websites has its own unique records. We are presently in a much better place than we were ten years ago,. but I would still not put much confidence in any attempt at comparing the different collections based on claimed numbers of records, images, collections, or any other measure. 

New Videos Every Week on the BYU Family History Library YouTube Channel

 

With over 600 videos, the Brigham Young University Family History Library YouTube Channel keeps growing with 4 or 5 new videos every week. I am sure you can find videos with subjects that will help you with your genealogical research. My latest video is Beginning African American Research, and it should uploaded shortly. The last video I did that is already on the Channel is Beginning Native American Research. These videos are recordings of the Sunday Classes that are presented by the BYU Family History Library every week that the library is open. We also have webinars, weekday classes, indexing classes, and regularly produced short instructional videos. 

I will also be starting another series of videos focusing on how to approach specific research problems. These videos will be hosted on the Goldie May YouTube channel. I will be writing about these videos as they are uploaded. 

I am also scheduled for some MyHeritage Facebook Live presentations. You can watch for these on the MyHeritage Facebook Video page. Some of these videos are also featured on the MyHeritage Education Pages. 

I had several videos for RootsTech 2022 including this one. 

https://www.familysearch.org/rootstech/session/researching-the-great-northward-migration-1880-1970-the-movement-of-6-to-7-million-african-americans

I am averaging more than one new video a week and some weeks I have three or even four. I realize with all the genealogy videos now being produced that it is impossible to even be aware of all of them. 

Changes to Ancestry.com: More than Cosmetic

 

Around the time of RootsTech 2022, Ancestry.com introduced some substantial changes to their website without much publicity. Here is an article that gives an overview of the changes. "The New Look and Feel of the Ancestry® Website."

One improvement includes putting a link to your family tree right at the top of the startup page. Here is a screenshot of how mine looks like. 

The new links also give you a shortcut to the last people you were working on. Most of the rest of the page is personalized to give you links into current highlights and your DNA results. The right-side of the page has some simplified search fields with a link to a more advanced search. My experience so far is that I am able to get to work much faster than with the previous layout. 

Some of the options that were in the drop-down menus have migrated to the page also such as a link to the card catalog and some commonly used record collections. 

There have also been some changes to the look and feel of the family tree. 

The tree appears more compact, and the icons have changed. There is now a link to existing ThruLines® for each individual where that information is available. 

One completely new addition is the "Tree viewing options."

You can turn on or off some of ways you view your family tree. 

I like the changes. Anything that cuts down the number of clicks I have to make to do my work is an improvement. You might want to spend some time clicking around and see what more has been changed. 

Delete or Detach Information on the FamilySearch Family Tree

 

To start off on this subject, it is important to know that changing or deleting information from the FamilySearch.org Family Tree should only be done when there are valid, specific. historical, genealogical sources supporting the change. Further, no information is automatically deleted by FamilySearch. You can also edit information as long as the information is not marked as Read Only. 

If you click on the Edit link for any of the fields on an individual's profile sheet, you will see something like the following.

The first field tells you how many people are following this particular person in the Family Tree. Each of those people will be notified about any changes you make to these entries. In addition, the list on the right side of the window shows you all the sources that support this particular entry, in this case, a birth record. There is also a Reason explaining why each field of the information is considered to be correct. 

In the lower right-hand corner, there is a link that will allow you to delete this information. Before you even think about making changes to an existing profile, I suggest you look at and study all the sources attached. The delete option should only be used if you have some overriding source that shows that the information is not correct. When you see sources supporting the existing information, you should carefully think about the consequences of ignoring all these sources. You also need to understand that because there are people watching this individual, one or more of them may immediately restore the information you delete and will also likely send you a message telling you not to make changes without a supporting source.  The more people that are watching a profile, the more likely you are to receive a message about any changes you make. 

Sometimes the information in a date or place field will be missing, incorrect, or lacking in detail. Adding source supported information and correcting deficient information is part of maintaining the tree. For example, if someone has entered an approximate date for either birth or death and you find a birth or death record, you should edit the information and make sure you explain why you made the change and attached a link to or a copy of the birth or death record.  

Sources added to an individual cannot be deleted. They can only be detached. A source tells where information about an individual can be found. 

In working on the Family Tree, you may find references to GEDCOM files or the Ancestral File. Both of these contain user submitted information and seldom contain any reference to the original historical source documents. If either GEDCOM or the Ancestral File are given as a reason for entering the information, neither of these will be considered to be a historical, genealogical source and the information will be questionable at best until the underlying documents are found. 

The rule is that any information added, changed, or deleted in the Family Tree must be supported by a valid, specific. historical, genealogical sources supporting the change. 

What will happen if you make a change or delete information that is already supported by sources? Someone will come along and correct your errors. But you will be wasting both your time and the time of the person who must correct your unsupported information. 

None of your information about your family disappears from the FamilySearch Family Tree when you die

 

Sorry for the long blog post title but it is the only way I can say exactly what this post is about. The FamilySearch.org Family Tree is a unified, collaborative, and cooperative family tree. However, for basic privacy reasons information about living people added to the Family Tree is visible only to the person who adds (uploads, types in, etc.) the information. As soon as a person is marked deceased, all that information becomes visible and discoverable on the Family Tree. However, it is possible that more than one profile for a living person was created. In that case, only those copies of the person (each with a unique ID number) who marks their living copies as deceased triggers the ability of anyone to see that information. Obviously, as people mark their copy of the deceased person as deceased, multiple copies (duplicates) of the person will start to appear in the Family Tree. 

At no time does the death of an individual impact the information (data, entries, etc) in the Family Tree. Anyone, including the close relatives of the deceased can immediately see all marked duplicates and all of the information that anyone, including the deceased, added to the Family Tree. Just as I or anyone else can see, correct, and change the information about any of anybody's deceased ancestors. Don't worry about me jumping over and try to work on your family lines unless I happen to be related to you in some reasonable way. 

FamilySearch takes extraordinary efforts to preserve all the information on the Family Tree. 

If you are still uneasy about your own information being preserved, you should make sure all your information is entered into the Family Tree. If you have any qualms about your information's integrity or permanency on the Family Tree, then by all means keep a copy on your own desktop program or on another online family tree. 

For members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as soon as the Ward Clerk in the ward where the person resides learns of his or her death, the Ward Clerk can mark them as deceased and within a few minutes the deceased person will show up on the Family Tree. 

Here is another twist to the problem. What if the spouse is relying on the dead person's login and password? The rule is everyone using the Family Tree should have their own login and password (i.e. be registered as an individual). If you want to work on your spouse's family, then get them to log on until the Family Tree shows the first dead people and then anyone, including the spouse, can work on the lines. 

Enough said.

Confronting the Changes on the FamilySearch Family Tree from GEDCOM files: Part One

Weekly notification of changes made to the people I am following on the FamilySearch Family Tree.

I was looking at the Community section on the FamilySearch.org website and saw a trending discussion about GEDCOM files being uploaded to the FamilySearch Family Tree. The gist of the discussion was gloom and doom about adding GEDCOM files to the Family Tree. Before I comment about the subject of changes to the Family Tree, I think that most of the comments showed a lack of understanding about GEDCOM. 

GEDCOM is not a program; it is a standard format for exchanging information between different genealogy websites and programs. When you download a GEDCOM file of your file, the GEDCOM Standard specifies that the information will be compatible with another website or program's file format assuming both of the websites or programs support and adhere to the GEDCOM Standard.  

Here is a more extensive explanation about GEDCOM from Wikipedia:

GEDCOM (/ˈdʒɛdkɒm/ JED-kom) (an acronym standing for Genealogical Data Communication) is an open de facto specification for exchanging genealogical data between different genealogy software. GEDCOM was developed by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) as an aid to genealogical research.

A GEDCOM file is plain text (usually either UTF-8 or ASCII) containing genealogical information about individuals, and metadata linking these records together. Most genealogy software supports importing from and exporting to GEDCOM format. However, some genealogy software programs incorporate the use of proprietary extensions to the format, which are not always recognized by other genealogy programs, such as the GEDCOM 5.5 EL (Extended Locations) specification.

While GEDCOM X and several other specifications have been suggested as replacements, the current 2019 version, based on the draft from 1999, remains the industry standard 20 years on.

It is possible to indirectly upload a GEDCOM file to the FamilySearch Family Tree. I say indirectly because one of the steps before adding your file to the Family Tree is to compare the potential new information with the information already in the Family Tree. Let's say that the person uploading a GEDCOM file was the first person in his/her line to enter information into the Family Tree. The GEDCOM standard provides a path so that the information in the GEDCOM file is not lost. FamilySearch then takes you through a process where you identify any duplicates. Old GEDCOM files will very likely contain a lot of duplicate entries to those in the Family Tree. 

The process for uploading a file is quite involved and somewhat complicated. Here is a link to the instructions. "How do I copy information from my GEDCOM file into Family Tree?" In almost all cases, uploading your file into the Family Tree is a really bad idea, especially if you upload more than a few dozen names. The reason for this opinion is that it is very likely that a larger number of people will already be duplicated in the Family Tree and cause a great deal more work on the part of the people who are following and maintaining the Family Tree. Additionally, here is a quote about the effects of uploading a GEDCOM file from the article linked in this paragraph. 

If you choose to proceed, keep in mind that notes, sources, multimedia links, and information about living people do not automatically copy to Family Tree.

 Without sources, your uploaded entries may be removed by someone who is watching the Family Tree regularly (like I do).  I suggest starting to work directly on the Family Tree and use your GEDCOM information to enter the information person-by-person. You might be surprised that much of your research has already been done. If you are one of the few people who will be adding original research, I suggest that entering the individuals one-by-one with the source citations will ultimately save you time. 

More about this later.