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Noise in the context of transferring information is any type of disruption that interferes with the transmission or interpretation of information from the sender to the receiver. In our case, the FamilySearch.org Family Tree is the sender and we are the receivers. The "noise" is the disruptive information that is intentionally or negligently present in the Family Tree that disrupts our using the information for the purpose for which it was intended. Do I need to give some examples? How about this for noise:
By the way, the list of changes goes on and on for Francis Cooke. This is definitely noise. Can FamilySearch do anything to cut down on the noise level in the Family Tree?
Over the past few years, as the Family Tree program has developed, many of the underlying issues with the information inherited from over a hundred years of genealogical submissions to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been "cleaned up." On its own, this process of standardizing entries and correcting errors has eliminated a great deal of the confusion and noise present in the program, but in some limited areas, such as the Mayflower passenger Francis Cooke, the noise level is still deafening. Here is what is happening.
Over the past hundred years or so, people both in and out of the Church have been accumulating their family history mostly in the form of paper records and more recently in the ancient Personal Ancestral File program. These records are like a huge reservoir of "noise." Very few of these records were accurately recorded or supported by source citations because that was not a priority at the time they were created. The dam holding back this huge reservoir of records broke when FamilySearch instigated (introduced) new.FamilySearch.org releasing a flood of informational noise. FamilySearch contributed to the flood when it dumped in all the previously submitted records including millions of duplicate records. During the time new.FamilySearch.org was in use, the flood increased exponentially. The new.FamilySearch.org program actually encouraged adding in more unsupported information and additional duplicates.
When the FamilySearch.org Family Tree was introduced, the flood of noise was rampaging through the genealogical community augmented by millions of individual family trees on other online genealogical database programs. Slowly, as the years passed, the flood subsided. FamilySearch began to get control over the flow of information into the Family Tree and the users began to provide sources and remove duplicates. Meanwhile, like a lone voice drowned in the flood, I have been writing, teaching, presenting and working away trying to persuade people to get rid of the last vestiges of the flood of noise in the Family Tree. Actually, there are a lot of people out there who are aware of the problem and making tremendous attempts to stem the flood.
How do we stop the flood of noise?
I have an idea. We need to form Family Tree Noise Abatement Groups (aka vigilantes) who can join together in groups, such as the descendants of Francis Cooke and talk to each other about maintaining the integrity of the Family Tree one person at a time. We can agree to look at the target person every day (or frequently) and send messages about maintaining the integrity of the Family Tree to anyone who makes an unsupported change. We have such an informal group targeting others in my family line and this has been successful in almost completely eliminating the noise and changes.
I would suggest that we could use Facebook to create a memorial page for each of these target individuals and use the page to exchange information about the ancestor that needs to be corrected. We could also refer those making changes to the discussion on the page and send them a standard message. Here is an example of one of the standard messages I send to everyone making changes to my ancestor William Tanner.
We certainly appreciate your interest in the Tanner family. However, we notice that your changes were made without reading the existing documentation, sources, and memories. We also notice that your changes were not supported by any contemporary sources. Please take the time to carefully consider all the information that is already available on the Family Tree before making any changes. The Ancestral File is not a source. It is a compilation of user submitted pedigrees. James Tanner genealogyarizona@gmail.comDoing this would go a long way to eliminating the noise and making things a lot more pleasant on the Family Tree. Who wants to start?
Extensive research into North Kingstown probate and other files has shown that the the father of Francis Tanner MTC6-SWW and his brothers, Nathan Tanner LFY7-PVT, and Benjamin Tanner M2G7-SMB whose name was William Tanner, had a wife named Elizabeth. He could not have been the William Tanner who was born in 1657. So far, we have counted at least 12 possible William Tanners in Rhode Island at that time and research is continuing to Identify the one who is the father of Francis Tanner MTC6-SWW, Nathan Tanner LFY7-PVT and Benjamin Tanner M2G7-SMB. Please feel free to add a source record supporting any additions you make to the Tanner Family. Also, the records show that a “William Tanner” married Elizabeth Colgrove in 1723, long after both Francis and Nathan were born. Perhaps, you could take the time to the read the extensive documentation and Memories attached to Francis Tanner before making any changes. Please be aware that the Tanner books are highly inaccurate and are not at all supported by the documentary evidence. Please take time to read the sources and the attached Memory documents.
The problem is far more widespread. I see some of the problem being people who import data from their own trees and thus more and more duplicate entries that need to be merged. Many times these are people born in the last 150 years. It is very frustrating.
ReplyDeleteI’m pondering the idea quite seriously. I’d like to suggest using WikiTree rather than Facebook for discussion and revision. Or perhaps FamilySearch could create a similar discussion space attached to each profile — not necessarily right on the profile tho but linking to it. There are times when even the “facts” need discussion. Such as the recent digitization of an Ohio County index of births. Whoever originally copied my great aunts birth information into the book in the early 1900s miscopied her name and now I’m arguing the facts with those who insist on a daughter named Luis Jane is actually my great aunt Doris Ione whom I knew personally and celebrated her birthday many times. But for now, I just keep challenging the addition and trying to keep the correct info listed ... despite the “source”.
ReplyDeleteThe venue is important because it has to be free and open to everyone. It would help immensely if the "Discussion" part of the Family Tree, now under collaborate was somehow more prominent and mandatory.
Deletewhile we've been promised it for years, I think it is now on the horizon where we will be able to make 'corrections' to indexed records. This may help with the issues like you describe
DeleteYou probably already know this, but there is a group within FamilySearch known as Data Quality. These folks are dedicated, among other things, to creating accurate records using the best sources available for folks such as the Mayflower people and famous folks like Thomas Jefferson and others. These records are Read Only and cannot be altered. But there are also many duplicate records for these famous people, and I see many people trying to change or add to these kinds of records. Charlemagne has about 67,000 records in Family Tree, for example. So, perhaps the best and easiest solution is to ask FamilySearch to delete these dups because many records say, for one reason or another, like too many notes or discussions, they cannot be merged. One must take the time to delete these first. It would be great if a group of employees/missionaries were assigned to just take out all records for, like, Charlemagne, and leave only the Read Only correct ones. When I come to a relative of that stature, I dedicate quite a bit of time to delete the same notes and discussions from them, and then merge. It is frustrating and time consuming, but worth it.
ReplyDeleteTwo other comments. The new Person Page now displays attached sources when someone tries to edit information, like in Vitals and the Family Section - marriage, etc. So that is a great help and thank you FamilySearch. Hopefully, people will take the time to open these and read them. No guarantee there,
ReplyDeleteOne other thing that drives me crazy is the push to get youth, even those in Primary, to get on Family Tree to find names for the temple. Their brains are not fully developed yet, and their interest in family history is slight at best. I know the powers-that-be are trying to get more people involved with family history with these various campaigns to engage young people, but really, I do not see most of them taking the time nor interest, nor having the required knowledge of how things work, nor the maturity to make sometimes difficult decisions about things like merging dups, or adding new people from sources, and so on. I taught school from Jr. High to High school for 34 years, and I have 7 children of my own and 35 grand kids, so I think my cautions are believable.
I have had a similar idea for a while, but I called it having Line Captains- at least two people who are good researchers who approve any and all changes to a family. I would love to be a line captain for all my direct ancestors and their children. If only we could get someone at FamilySearch to listen! Do you know anyone?
ReplyDeleteI also think it would help TREMENDOUSLY if FamilySearch would take away all rights to make changes, and then gradually give those rights back after people watch educational videos. For example, they can watch a :10-:15 video on why to change a name, what types of names are appropriate (leave off the military titles please), and how to make those changes from RECORDS they have attached, not things they find on Ancestry.