Limitations on FamilySearch Family Tree Ordinance Crawler Applications

Programs that find green icons or temple opportunities in the FamilySearch.org Family Tree have become very popular recently. In the FamilySearch.org App Gallery, there are 47 apps listed under the category of "Tree Analyzing." Many of these utility programs are the "favorite" programs for those who have only a casual involvement in family history. From what I see around me, whole Wards and even some Stakes, base their efforts at promoting family history on using one or another of these programs.

These Tree Analyzing programs are called "Ordinance Crawlers" by the programmers who support and maintain the Family Tree. In a recent newsletter dated September 29, 2017, aimed at developers of programs that use the Family Tree, i.e. the developers of the ordinance crawler programs, FamilySearch noted that certification and approval of additional such programs would be discontinued until further notice. This action is being taken because of the high load that these third-party ordinance crawler programs are placing on the internet resources available to FamilySearch.

From my own standpoint, the value of these ordinance crawler programs is marginal in advancing the integrity, value, and growth of the Family Tree. First of all, they all depend to a greater or lesser degree of the accuracy of the data already in the Family Tree. Some of these programs are better than others in determining the validity of opportunities found. In many cases, the "opportunities" turn out to be more accurately an indication that serious research is needed in a particular family. The Family Tree program is constantly becoming more sophisticated in analyzing the validity of the entries. Red warning icons that indicate serious errors in the data are increasingly common. Finding the overlooked or undone temple ordinances in the program is becoming more and more difficult.

When the Family Tree was first released and for several years after its introduction as a replacement for the new.FamilySearch.org program, green ordinance availability icons were abundant. However, in many cases, their abundance was an illusion caused by the Family Tree program's inability to accurately determine the existence of duplicate individuals. Beginning in June of 2017, that limitation in the Family Tree was eliminated to a great degree and millions of duplicates were merged. This affected the number of apparent ordinance opportunities because many of those duplicates showed opportunities when completed ordinance work was recorded on two or more duplicate individual records in the Family Tree. For example, one copy of an individual may have some of the required ordinances and another copy might have other completed ordinances. When the two copies were merged, all of the ordinances showed as completed.

The issue of duplicate entries in the Family Tree still exists and to some extent, as information is added to the entries in the Family Tree, additional duplicates can still be found in great numbers. By adding information to the entries from research into the available records, more and more duplicates become evident. I have written about these "Ghost Records" on the Family Tree over the past few months. In one sense, the ordinance crawlers reduce the number of green icons by finding those that are available, but in another, real sense, they also increase the number of duplicate ordinances performed and effectively hide the multiple duplicate entries that exist when research adds information to the existing entries.

From the standpoint of FamilySearch, the "duplicate issue" has been solved. The Family Tree now detects most of the obvious duplicates. But the duplicates that appear only after research has added new information to existing individuals is still hidden and very extensive despite assurances from FamilySearch to the contrary. I have very recently spent hours working through the duplicates for one family that only appeared when I added information obtained from research and I am certain that I will have the same experience many times in the future.

Now, back to ordinance crawlers. These programs give an appearance of the fact that names for temple ordinance are already identified and waiting to be found in the existing entries in the Family Tree. A very few Family Tree users take advantage of these programs to do serious research. But in my own experience, I have found them to be less useful than simply spotting research opportunities and beginning research.

If the emphasis on working with the Family Tree was changed from "mining" to research, perhaps the problem of the overuse of the FamilySearch resources would be solved. Relying on these types of programs, not a solution to validating and improving the Family Tree.