How Reliable is the Ordinances Ready App?

https://www.familysearch.org/blog/en/ordinances-ready/

FamilySearch.org recently implemented a new "app" called Ordinances Ready that works with the Family Tree. If you are a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the app appears in the "Temple" link on your startup page of the website. This app seems to belong to a category of apps or websites we have been calling "ordinance crawlers." See my previous blog post, "Ten Problems With Ordinance Crawlers" posted about a year ago on January 29, 2018. before making any comments about this newest ordinance crawler app from FamilySearch, I think it would be a good idea to review my ten "problems." Here is the list. For a complete discussion refer back to the original article linked above.

1. The ordinance crawler programs all assume that the family links in the Family Tree are accurate which is not the case.  

2. Ordinance crawler programs tie up online resources that could better be used to speed up the FamilySearch.org website on Sundays and other days.  

3. The ordinance crawler programs are a substitute for research that would add individuals and families to the Family Tree. 

4. Because they present the Family Tree as a place to look for ordinance opportunities, the ordinance crawlers discourage real research. 

5. The number of ordinance opportunities that are "just waiting" for someone to find are decreasing every day. 

6. There is no emotional connection to a person who is only known by a line of unfamiliar relatives. 

7. Ordinance crawlers reinforce the idea that FamilySearch somehow manufactures temple opportunities. 

8. Many of the ordinance crawler apps are commercially created and involve an advanced fee-based level. 

9. Ordinance crawlers are not like training wheels on a bicycle, there is no incentive to learn or do more.  

10. Let's face it family history is a difficult, time-consuming avocation. It is a disservice to our tradition as family historians to reduce the activity to a mindless clicking of buttons. 

Well, we now have a new app and another year of water under the bridge. How many, if any or all, of these problems I perceived back in 2018 are still valid issues? Without going through each of the ten listed items, I would have to say that to some extent, they all still apply. The main reason for concluding that the current Ordinances Ready app falls into the same category as the previously existing websites and apps is contained in problem number one above that all these programs assume the information and family links in the Family Tree.

Now, there are some additional considerations that have arisen over the past year and most recently with the introduction of the newer app. Some of these tend to ameliorate the issues raised previously but those problems do not entirely disappear. One serious new problem I did not previously list comes from professional genealogists who are members of the Church and therefore may have ethical issues with recommending an "app" that they know will produce inaccurate results. This is a real problem. But I am not going to explore this issue here except to mention it.

The real question is how reliable is the Ordinances Ready app in doing more than finding "green icons?" This question brings up a question that underlies all genealogical research. If you work with the Family Tree as intensively as I have you realize that it is becoming more and more accurate but it also still has a tremendous overburden of duplicates and inaccurate entries. Of course, this issue of duplicates and inaccurate entries dates back over a hundred years. Genealogy as a whole has an issue with duplicate work and inaccuracy. Quite frankly, the FamilySearch Family Tree is the first effort that has any traction in addressing these problems directly.

Let me illustrate this problem with this hypothetical situation. Let's say that in the past you obtained a name for Temple ordinances that came from the previously existing extraction program. How accurate was the name you received from the Temple? Did you have any way to determine the accuracy or whether or not the name was a duplicate for ordinances that had already been done? These questions have always existed since the 1800s. Is there now any greater problem in obtaining a name from Ordinances Ready? No. The vast difference is that for those of us who care, we can now take the time, if we do, to determine whether the names represent duplicates or are inaccurate. In fact, FamilySearch has procedures in place to determine a fairly high percentage of the duplicates. Granted as I point out in Problem #1 above, the whole procedure still relies on the accuracy of the Family Tree, but that is always the underlying issue with all genealogical (historical) research and investigations. We can NEVER be absolutely sure that the information we have discovered even with DNA testing and everything else is totally accurate.

So why is there a continuing issue today? Now we have the means and some of us that care have the ability to determine if the names provided by the program are reasonably valid or duplicates or whatever. So if you are worried about the validity of the names, take the time to check them and do the research. If not, don't obsess with the issue of duplicates and accuracy. Additionally, if you are not spending time standardizing dates, names and places and cleaning up the Family Tree and doing additional research to correct the entries, you are not in a position to take a position about the accuracy of the Family Tree at all.

If you find yourself in the category of those people who dismiss the Family Tree merely because of the possibility that someone might change what you have entered. Get real. You are part of the problem caused by over a hundred years of isolated individuals who were convinced that everything they wrote down was correct.

Have I changed my mind about ordinance crawlers? No. Of course, all of the problems I listed above do not apply to the Ordinances Ready app, but it is better than extraction and measurably better than blindly searching for green Temple icons.