Answering the Questions from Sharing Record Hints and Sources: Part Three

At the start of the series, I listed a number of questions that are commonly posed by patrons as I volunteer at the Brigham Young University Family History Library and elsewhere. I am afraid I wandered pretty far from the subject of record hints and sources but ultimately, as all my topics are ultimately related, it might fit together. It might also be helpful to know that the answers to the questions are my own personal opinions.

Here are the next questions:

If I am concerned about changes made to the FamilySearch.org Family Tree, do I maintain a separate, personal family tree on another program?

Online family tree programs infrequently provide personal backup copies of your data. The websites are obviously backed up to their own servers. This is especially true of the FamilySearch.org Family Tree. But in the case of the Family Tree, if anyone changes the data in your portion of the Family Tree, then, the backup preserves the changes. However, many users are concerned about reversing the changes that are made to reflect their own personal data. Hence, the apparent necessity for a separate copy of a personal genealogical database.

The FamilySearch.org Family Tree already provides a detailed list of every change made to the data in the program. There is a link on every person or detail page showing every change back to the time when the data was first entered. In almost all cases, by showing the list of all the changes and clicking on the "Reference" link you can see exactly what was done in reverse any changes made.

This screenshot shows the first and most recent entry in the All Changes list and the arrows indicate the Reference and Show Relationship links. Essentially, all of the information needed to reverse this change is available right here in the program. However, if you only infrequently view the program you may not know whether or not the change is valid or invalid. Having your own program with your own version of the data does not necessarily mean that the information you have is correct and that the information added or changed on the Family Tree is incorrect. Your information may be incorrect. The information changed or added may be incorrect. Both your information and the information added or changed may be incorrect. The problem of a change may not be easily rectified by simply referring to your own inaccurate information. Whether or not you have your own separate copy on another program may simply mean you need to go out and do some research. From my perspective, in almost all cases, referring back to some previous copy of the data on a separate program is not needed or necessary.

By the way, very few people actually believe my explanation. I think the real issues involve the time and effort of maintaining a separate database apart from the Family Tree. The underlying issue of the changes in the Family Tree involves working with your relatives to develop a consensus concerning the content of the record. In other words, because of the unified nature of the Family Tree, you are essentially forced to collaborate with anyone else out there in the universe who is concerned about your particular entries. In some cases, this may be almost no one but in other cases, such as my own, there are likely thousands of people who are potentially in a position to make changes. It is an overly simplistic view of life and the Family Tree to assume that you do not have to deal with all of these relatives. Retreating back to your own personal and in many cases, unverified database on a separate program is a panacea, not the solution.

All that said, if you want to have your own personal database on any program either online or on your desktop that is your own personal decision to make. But I do strongly suggest that you reconsider imposing your own limited view of the reliability of your own database before imposing your opinions and that of your own traditions when new data is entered into the Family Tree.

Should I use an online program, such as Ancestry.com or one of the other partner programs or a separate desktop based program?

 Rather than the complicated explanation of the first question above, the answer to this question is extremely simple. The answer is: it depends. If you're comfortable working online is an online program if you're more comfortable working on a desktop program, use a desktop program. That's the answer. If you have a question about which program to use I would suggest, as I always do, referring to GenSoftReview.com for up-to-date review information on genealogical programs.

Here art the links to the original post with all of the questions listed and the subsequent posts with my answers.

http://rejoiceandbeexceedingglad.blogspot.com/2017/09/answering-questions-from-sharing-record.html
http://rejoiceandbeexceedingglad.blogspot.com/2017/09/sharing-record-hints-and-sources-part.html