Big Data and the FamilySearch Family Tree: How Accurate Can It Be?

The term "Big Data" is used to describe extremely large data sets that may be analyzed computationally to reveal patterns, trends, and associations, especially relating to human behavior and interactions. If you think about this definition, especially the references to associations and interactions, you might think that the FamilySearch.org unified Family Tree falls into the definition. Here are some statistics that would give you the impression that working with the FamilySearch.org website and in particular, the Family Tree,  has crossed into the realm of Big Data. These statistics come from a recent presentation by FamilySearch and are as of March 2019.

• Number of Searchable names in the Historical Records   7.01 Billion
• Digital images published in FamilySearch's Historic Collections online  1.37 Billion
• Digital Images published only in the FamilySearch Catalog online  1.014 Billion
• Number of searchable records  4.66 Billion
• Registered FamilySearch users  12.4 million

Usually, we think of Big Data in terms of information currently being generated and stored. However, in the case of FamilySearch, the information being accumulated is both current and historical. Much of the concern about Big Data is its accuracy and likewise, a significant amount of concern has been expressed over the years about the accuracy of online family trees in general and in particular the accuracy of the FamilySearch Family Tree.

Because the Family Tree is a wiki, I have always maintained that over time, the Family Tree will become more accurate. This works in specific areas, but how will it continue to work if as the Family Tree continues to grow and the number of sources and Memories added continue to grow rapidly? Some of the challenges faced by the Family Tree are hardware issues that relate to the cost and complexity of maintaining a huge online database. But more fundamentally from the standpoint of the users, the issue of accuracy in the data faces the development of significant accuracy and consistency issues. For users, the issues of accuracy and duplication of entries are paramount.

From a software engineering and database management standpoint, accuracy and error management focus almost exclusively on the hardware and the programming. This is sometimes referred to as "fault tolerance." Fault Tolerance is the ability of the infrastructure to continue providing service to underlying applications even after the failure of one or more component pieces in any layer.  See "What is fault-tolerance in cloud computing?" The actual structure of the Family Tree and the rest of the FamilySearch.org website is actually robust and well developed. The distinguishing factor of the Family Tree is that unlike the usual Big Data operation where the accuracy of the content is analyzed statistically, the tolerance for a margin of error in the Family Tree should not be measured assuming an analyzed standard margin of error that is acceptable.

Because the Family Tree is a wiki, no margin of error is in a sense acceptable. We have fundamental religious beliefs supported by scripture that admonish us to work towards not only personal perfection but also perfection in record keeping. Of course, we are forced to rely on imperfect and incomplete historical records, but the idea of working towards perfection should be ingrained into everything that pertains to the Family Tree. Notwithstanding this religious motivational standard, the Family Tree is still Big Data and prone to some of the same issues as other collections of Big Data. In the world of Big Data, these issues are identified under the heading of Data Quality.

If we look at the Family Tree as a formal data system, we should recognize that it has a very specific internal structure, something that is not present in most very large data sets. Everything in the Family Tree has an assigned virtual location i.e. every individual who has been born or will be born has a specific virtual location within the Family Tree. The wiki format allows the Family Tree to grow exponentially and still maintain the same structure. Granted, some component data parts of the Family Tree are not connected together but that problem is not the fault of the structure, it is the fault of the accuracy and completeness of the data. Over time and with extensive upgrading of software systems that detect duplication and provide improved and reliable record matching capabilities, the Family Tree can increase its overall accuracy. This process can be prodded along by enhancements in the software that detect common errors and suggest more accurate responses.

The accuracy of the entire structure of the Family Tree depends solely upon the accuracy of each entry for each individual. The process of "adding names" should never override the need for accuracy. There are currently some developments that are affecting genealogy and thereby affecting the entries in the Family Tree. One of these is the spread of individual DNA tests. Another is the increasing availability of digitized source documents. With respect to DNA tests, the reliability of the initial entries in the Family Tree such as the first four generations could be measurably helpful in increasing the overall accuracy of the Family Tree.

To the extent that the individual users of the Family Tree maintain high standards of accuracy and support their entries with information from reliable historical records, the overall accuracy of the Family Tree should continue to improve. The challenge for the individual is simply to make each entry as accurate as possible and then the overall accuracy of the Family Tree will continue to grow despite the limitations on accuracy imposed by the reality of Big Data. The efforts of the users can continue to be supported by programmed error detection systems such as the Consistency Checker developed by MyHeritage.com.

Judging the overall accuracy of the Family Tree by spot checking specific entries is bound to be misleading. Yes, it is certain that the overall accuracy of the Family Tree is highly dependent on individual choices, but collectively the wiki format allows users to spontaneously change or correct entries. One simple step that would increase the accuracy would be to continue to implement an automated consistency detection system which I realize is already a concern of the programmers, but in addition, a concerted education system for the users would also be appropriate and helpful.  

What is "Your" Family Tree? A New Addition to the Basic Rules of Genealogy

I frequently see genealogically oriented blog posts and advertisements that refer to "your family tree." and as I thought about this use of an ownership term, I decided that it was time to add a twelfth rule to the Basic Rules of Genealogy. If you are not familiar with the Basic Rules of Genealogy, I suggest you review the following blog posts:

I published the first six Rules of Genealogy back on July 1, 2014. See "Six of the Basic Rules of Genealogy." This short list included the most famous and basic rule of genealogy: "When the baby was born, the mother was there." I added four rules in a post back on August 11, 2017, entitled, "New Rules Added to the old: The Rules of Genealogy Revisited." Summer must be my time for thinking of new rules. You can go back to these two original posts to read about the details of each rule.

Then I added one more rule back on August 2, 2018, in this blog post, "A New Rule Added: The Rules of Genealogy Revisited Again." Now it is time to add yet another rule. Here is the list for reference:

Here is a list of those original six rules from 2014:

• Rule One: When the baby was born, the mother was there.
• Rule Two: Absence of an obituary or death record does not mean the person is still alive.
• Rule Three: Every person who ever lived has a unique birth order and a unique set of biological parents.
• Rule Four: There are always more records.
• Rule Five: You cannot get blood out of a turnip. 
• Rule Six: Records move. 

In 2017, I added these four rules:

• Rule Seven: Water and genealogical information flow downhill
• Rule Eight: Everything in Genealogy is connected (butterfly)
• Rule Nine: There are patterns everywhere
• Rule Ten: Read the fine print

Well, we now have another rule.

• Rule Eleven: Even a perfect fit can be wrong

The new rule is easy to remember:

Rule Twelve: You do not own your ancestors

Unless you come from a long line of parents who were both only children and who were all descended from only children, you have a lot of relatives. You may not know who all these people are but you do have a lot of them. In fact, your relatives likely number into the billions. For example, on one of my online family tree programs on MyHeritage.com, I have more than a 100,000 Smart Matches™that indicate I have about that many relatives who share the information I have on that particular family tree. If you are one of these people who believe you have traced your ancestry back to Adam or whatever, you automatically can claim billions of relatives. So which one of those relatives owns all that potential genealogical information? This "my" and "your" possessive language is not just misleading, it is pernicious and false. I guess you could accurately talk about "my family tree on MyHeritage.com or Ancestry.com if you are referring to the file itself, but the contents of "your" family tree don't belong to you or anyone else.

Here in the United States, we have a very pervasive "ownership" point of view. We add the idea of "my" to almost everything when we will all die and then who owns all those "my" things? Genealogy gives us an open field of things that we cannot even conceptually "own" beginning with our ancestors. We all share our ancestors with all of their descendants. We do not and cannot conceivably "own" anything about our ancestors.

Our legal system in the United States can give us an illusion of ownership, but ultimately, everything we have here on this earth is shared with everyone else who is living and has ever lived, including, but not limited to the air we breathe. Hence, Rule Twelve.

51st annual BYU Conference on Family History and Genealogy

https://familyhistory.ce.byu.edu/registration?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=CFHG2_0523&utm_content=button-register

There are classes for all skill levels —whether you’re seasoned in family history or just beginning. We also offer more than 20 different tracks, so you can learn about what interests you most.

I will be teaching two classes this year at the Conference.

Here’s a sampling of those tracks:

• Online Research, featuring classes like “Instagram for Genealogists” and “Using Social Media to Solve Your Family History Brick Walls”
• Military Research, with classes like “Basic Training – Find Your Ancestors in Military Records” and “Researching Your Colonial War Ancestors”
• Organize, Preserve & Share, including classes like “Fable or Fact? Verifying Old Family Stories” and “Road to Publication”

https://familyhistory.ce.byu.edu/home

Exploring Genealogy Series #10 Introduction to MyHeritage.com

Exploring Genealogy Series #10 Introduction to MyHeritage.com

This is #10 in the Exploring Genealogy Series. This episode focuses on an introduction to the MyHeritage.com website. I will be expanding on the exploration of other online websites in the future and be continuing with my focus on MyHeritage.com.

My Exploring Genealogy Series is on my YouTube Channel. Here is the link to the Channel.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4cT2_EjTMVVJgaF5Gdwl1Q?view_as=subscriber

Please take a moment to subscribe.

Exploring Genealogy Series #9 Research on the FamilySearch Family Tree #4

Exploring Genealogy Series #9 Research on the FamilySearch Family Tree #4

Yes, this is another in the Exploring Genealogy Series. This video continues with the research of the Alexander Bragg family and I begin my focus on my direct line ancestor Sarah Bragg who apparently has a number of research issues and a possible second marriage. This particular video series documents my thought process in examining a particular family in the FamilySearch.org Family Tree. Because this is a multipart series, it may seem like I am moving rather slowly, but I am demonstrating each of the issues that need to be addressed when researching a family. From a superficial look at the Family Tree, you might conclude that "all the research had been done" on this family. But as my examination proceeds, you can see all of the issues that come to light including wrongly indexed records and problems with dates and the need to standardize dates and places.

This video, along with the others in this series are on my YouTube Channel.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4cT2_EjTMVVJgaF5Gdwl1Q?view_as=subscriber

If you search for the Channel, you need to search for "James Tanner Channel" and then you will see about a half a dozen "james tanners" and you can spot me from my photo. But I will continue to link the channel from these blog posts. If you subscribe to the Channel then you can find it readily from your subscription list on YouTube.com.

Still Waiting for those Golden Years: Avoiding Frauds and Scams

I recently read an article in the Deseret News entitled, "Does Utah deserve the title 'fraud capital of the United States'?" According to the study cited in the article, the answer to the question was yes, Utah is the fraud capital of the United States. I really didn't need a newspaper article to make me aware of that fact. Utah and particularly Utah Valley, where I now live, have had that reputation for many years. The study cited only referred to Ponzi schemes, but there are a lot more frauds out there to catch the unprepared and unwary.

Over the years as a practicing trial attorney in Arizona, I encountered a sizable number of instances of fraud and not surprisingly, quite a few originated in Utah. In fact, some of the first clients I had, right out of law school, were involved in a huge land sales fraud called Lake Havasu Estates.  See "Land Fraud Target of U.S. Crackdown." That particular fraud instigated an overhaul of the land sale regulation in the United States. That particular fraud did not originate in Utah, it involved land in Arizona. It took a while to stop these types of sales. See "18 Indicted in Arizona Land Fraud Costing 10,000 Victims $40 Million." This one was called the Cochise College Park land fraud.

I still fail to understand how so many people can be defrauded of so much money. I was recently in a meeting here in Utah Valley with about 4- or 50 people who were mostly older than I am. The question was asked as to how many of these individuals had lost money due to fraud. To my surprise, I saw more than half of the peoples' hands go up.

I have a naturally inquisitive and suspicious nature. I learned long ago that is an offer or deal seemed too good to be true, it almost always was a fraud or scam. When do sales practices cross over into fraud and scams? When what is being sold or represented has little or no value and may even be detrimental to the buyer. The current classic example is the Nigerian Prince scam. Quoting from the Australian website Scamwatch.gov.au in an article entitled Nigerian Scams.

Nigerian scams involve someone overseas offering you a share in a large sum of money or a payment on the condition you help them to transfer money out of their country. While these scams originated in Nigeria, they now come from all over the world.

There is a long list of variations on this basic scam. This category of scam is called the "unexpected money or winnings" scam. It has a lot of different forms that include rebate scams and inheritance scams.

The classic Ponzi Scheme involves a proposed investment where the rate of return is much better than what could usually be expected and the first "investors" get a better than expected return which is paid from the subsequent investments of new investors until the entire structure collapses. The challenge of detecting these scams is that the perpetrators are usually people who are either well known to the victims or closely associated with people who are well known. The greed and duplicity of the victim is the core of almost all successful scams and frauds.

If someone steals your money or property without your knowledge or agreement the crime is theft. If you rely on representations made to you and willingly turn over your property and then lose it, that is fraud. A scam is the mechanism for committing a fraud.

So how can you avoid being defrauded?

Obviously, the victims of fraud are more common among those with diminished capacity. But anyone lets emotion overcome reason can be a victim. This is usually the case with frauds committed by people who are in your same religious or social organization. These are called affinity frauds. You trust the person because he or she is a known member of your organization. In every case, the person perpetrating the fraud first gains your trust in some way.

Here are five basic rules for avoiding frauds and scams:

#1 If it sounds too good to true, it probably isn't

High rates of return on investments usually are made by people who understand exactly what is at risk and make a judgment call to invest.

#2 If it is a once in a lifetime opportunity, you probably will lose money on the deal

As I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, there was a common lament; if I had just invested in property along Camelback Road, I would be rich now.  Yes, that would be possibly true but it ignores the fact that some people did invest in property along Camelback Road and other parts of the Salt River Valley and made a lot of money. Why did these people make money when you did not? Probably because they had money to invest and knew enough to invest in land. But as I mentioned above, there were plenty of people who bought land in Arizona and lost all of their investment even when there was not any fraud.

#3 If you have to decide right now or the opportunity will go away, then waiting will save you a lot of grief

Fraudulent schemes almost always come with a deadline for investment with the idea that there will not be enough time for the victim to reflect on the "opportunity" or consult with those who may be able to detect the fraud. If an investment is good today, then it will probably be good tomorrow. If you had purchased stock in Apple Computer years ago, you would be rich today is not the basis for making an investment today. Most sound investment strategies involve investing in a variety of areas that include stocks, real estate, and other time-honored investments.

#4 Don't lend money to relatives with the expectation of every being repaid 

If you do get repaid consider it a bonus. Many frauds are committed by family members. It is possible that your family member has a legitimate investment opportunity, but if he or she does, then they certainly won't mind having their investment proposal reviewed by an attorney and an accountant.

#5 Never give personal or financial information to anyone without knowing exactly who they are and why the information is needed

Most online frauds are based on obtaining personal and financial information from unsuspecting victims. Simply make an ironclad rule that you never give that kind of information to anyone unless you initiate the contact. Even if someone calls representing that they are calling from your bank if you did not initiate the call then terminate the contact immediately and call your bank or whatever directly on a publically available number to verify the contact. What is better is to go to the bank or other institution and ask them about the contact.

This rules will go a long way towards avoiding being defrauded. But remember, stop and think before you act.

Exploring Genealogy Series #8 Researching the FamilySearch Family Tree #3

Exploring Genealogy Series #8 Researching the FamilySearch Family Tree #3

This is a continuation of the Exploring Genealogy Video Series. In this segment, I continue with the research I started on the FamilySearch.org Family Tree. I find that there are no sources supporting the relationship between the two direct line ancestors I have chosen and I start working my way forward in time to see if there is something connecting Sarah Bragg to her father in the Family Tree.

Thanks for watching this video. Please take a moment to subscribe to my YouTube Channel so you can get notified of new videos as they are uploaded.

The idea with this video sub-series is to demonstrate, in detail, how I examine, correct, and research the entries in the FamilySearch.org Family Tree. If you would like to request a particular topic or want me to do a video answering a particular question, let me know by posting a comment.