In Defense of the Ordinances Ready Program

The Ordinances Ready app is not just another ordinance crawler. It goes well beyond the scope of the previously available programs or apps. It is interesting that some of the criticisms that I and others have leveled at the other ordinances crawlers are now being marshaled and rehashed by critics of the Ordinances Ready program. The two main issues are, as usual, duplicates and accuracy.

First of all, you cannot fault the Ordinances Ready program (or any other ordinance crawler for that matter) for either the duplicates or any lack of accuracy in the FamilySearch.org Family Tree. From a practical standpoint, neither of these issues is any better or worse because some users of the program end up duplicating temple work or doing an inaccurate name. The issues of duplicates and accuracy would be problems with or without the Ordinances Ready app or any other ordinance crawler. The duplicates come from multiple submissions of the same individuals over an extended period of time lasting over 100 years. The problem of duplicate records and the transferred problem of duplicate temple ordinances was first discussed as early as the 1890s when there were only four temples in operation. See Temples of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day SaintsTemples > Chronology.

What is the problem with duplicate entries? Can the duplicate problem be resolved? Are there more or fewer duplicates than there were say about ten years ago? Would abandoning the Ordinances Ready program help solve the duplicate issue? With respect to the duplicates, it is important to understand that once a name is "submitted to the temple" the issue of duplication is moot. The only way to resolve a shared duplicate is to perform the ordinance. It is this shared file that is the main objective of the Ordinances Ready app. If the app cannot find a name related to the requesting user, the app will profer a name from the oldest part of the previously shared names whether or not the suggested name is a relative of the requesting party or not. In this way, the duplicate issue is being addressed. Ultimately, all of the names in the backlog will need to be done. Only then, can the remaining duplicate entries by resolved from a practical standpoint. Actually, there are dramatically fewer duplicate entries than there were even a short time ago. It is important that the names in the backlog be completed and any duplicates in the backlog eliminated. Meanwhile, those who can should diligently check for duplicates before submitting any names and no, abandoning the ordinance crawlers entirely would not affect the number of duplicates at all.

We also need to recognize that the duplicate problem has been addressed by the Family Tree programmers and that a huge number of reasonably identifiable duplicates have been eliminated or are marked by the program. The duplicates that are left are almost all nearly unidentifiable "dark matter" that only becomes visible when additional research is done on the names in the Family Tree. Without the additional research, the duplicates are invisible to the program's built-in duplicate detection algorithms. Numerically, there are very, very few people who can do research at the level that detects these hidden duplicates. This fact immediately raises a serious problem; if the people who have the knowledge to find the duplicates simply avoid using the Ordinances Ready app to assist in their research and rail against the app, then those additional duplicates will be processed and done by unknowing users anyway and the duplicates in the "shared with the temples" category will be there in any event.

One the other hand, the inaccuracies in the Family Tree originate from a variety of causes primarily dealing with uninstructed or negligent contributors. The reality of having a universal and collaborative Family Tree is that the inaccuracies will eventually be corrected and overall, the Family Tree will become a standard for accuracy. Allowing the vast majority of the users to rely on the Ordinances Ready program for "names to take to the temples" magnifies the efforts of those who have the knowledge to correct entries. This is the result of the Ordinances Ready app decreasing the number of people who feel compelled to comb the Family Tree for green icons and at the same time make arbitrary changes that are not based on historic source records.

Now, what about the researchers who have the capability of looking at source records and finding new people for the Family Tree? We will keep doing our job. Even with going on 200 temples, the supply of names shared with the temples will outstrip the number needed to keep everyone busy. As I have been saying from some years now: the FamilySearch.org Family Tree is the solution, not the problem and I would add that the Ordinances Ready app helps to add to that solution.

There are a number of other side benefits for using the Ordinances Ready app and I suggest that you read the following post for additional information: "How Ordinances Ready has changed my way of doing research."