Review Existing Sources in the Family Tree Before Making Changes

If you are concerned about changes to anyone in the FamilySearch.org Family Tree, then you need to "Watch" those individuals. There is also a section in the Settings menu under your name when you are registered that will allow FamilySearch to send you email notifications every week of any changes to any of the people you are watching.

 The notification can be quite extensive depending on the number of people you are watching.

 This particular screenshot is actually the shortest list I have received in months.

Now, the real issue here is the changes that are made that contradict the sources attached to the individual. In the case of David Nathan Thomas shown above, there is some dispute in the existing records as to the date of his birth. However, there is a christening record and a census record that both agree as to the place of his christening and birth. In this instance, the change that was made changed the birthplace without adding any additional sources to substantiate or contradict the existing sources.

I did correct the change.

In my experience, almost all of the changes made to the Family Tree that invoke some kind of dispute, are made without citing any supporting source for the change. For some time, there have been suggestions and discussion about requiring a source before making any changes. Of course, the requirement should not apply to changing back or reverting an improper change. The difficulty, of course, would be to distinguish between a correction and a change to existing data.

 On the GetSatisfaction.com/FamilySearch website, where FamilySearch gathers comments about all of their programs, the section on changes to the Family Tree has over 6000 comments. The topic of requiring citations or an explanation at least has been discussed extensively for many years. From my own experience, this is the number one complaint about the Family Tree. Perhaps, it is about time to start addressing this issue in a meaningful way.

The FamilySearch Family Tree SourceLinker

The FamilySearch.org Family Tree is rapidly becoming more reliable with the addition of millions of source citations from records provided by Record Hints. As with almost everything about the Family Tree, there is always some background grumbling and criticism. The main issue is that some users seem to think that anything they see from FamilySearch is somehow accurate and applicable when the Record Hints are clearly hints that need to be reviewed and evaluated for applicability to any particular family or individual.

We recently attended a local Family History Conference in Springville, Utah. Even though I was teaching one class, we took the opportunity to attend two classes presented by Robert Kehrer, Senior Product Manager for FamilySearch's Search Experience. His classes are always excellent and provide a lot of information about the operation of the FamilySearch.org website. Some of the new features highlighted involved the FamilySearch SourceLinker. This is the program that attaches the sources supplied by the Record Hints to the Family Tree.

When you click on the blue Record Hint icon, you get a summary of the suggested source. In this case, I clicked on a Record Hint for my Great Grandfather, Henry Martin Tanner. the hint is from the Utah, Missionary Department Missionary Registers, 1860-1937. After looking at the hint and making a preliminary decision that it applies to my ancestor, I can click on the "Review and Attach" blue button.

This is a screenshot of the SourceLinker page. The idea is to evaluate the information and, if appropriate, link the source to your ancestor. One new feature pointed out by Robert Kehrer is the ability to change the person of focus. This feature helps to add the source to multiple people who may be in the Family Tree but not directly related to the default focus person such as in-laws, cousins or others that may appear on the record. Here is a screenshot showing the link to the drop-down menu listing possible other people who could become the focus person.

Changing the focus person adjusts the relationships to allow the record to be added to additional people in the Family Tree that have not been automatically available in the past. This one added feature will save me a lot of extra time spent in adding the source to others in the Family Tree.

This is a good example of the benefits of holding and attending local, smaller family history events.

Check Your Record Hints Carefully

We have to remember that Record Hints are hints. There is nothing about a Record Hint that supposes that FamilySearch has done anything to verify the content of the hint. A "hint" is a suggestion, nothing more, nothing less. The accuracy of the hints, by the way, is based on the accuracy of the information already in the FamilySearch.org Family Tree. For example, if the name in the family tree is incorrect, even if the program provides a "Record Hint" the hint will probably be for the wrong person.

There are a number of other reasons why the record hints for any of the programs that provide them might be wrong. One of the most common is the lack of records. For example, if I am searching in England or Scandinavia I may run into a situation where there are hundreds of people with the same or similar name is my ancestor. The existing records will also contain very little information differentiating people with the same name. In this situation, the computer program creating the record hints will often suggest people who have the same name and similar information but not be the same person.

Advanced searching techniques can make the searches more accurate such as those done by MyHeritage.com, but inevitably there will always be "false positives." A false positive is when the program indicates a match when no match actually exists. The goal of the programmers is to reduce false positives but in reality because of the discrepancies in genealogical records, this task is nearly impossible as we go further back in time. It is relatively easy for a record matching program to find a match for a person living within the last 200 years in an English-speaking country. But as we go back in time, the number of records decreases, the number of people with the same names increases and the difficulty in finding accurate matches eventually becomes nearly impossible.

Record match technology is a tremendous aid to research. FamilySearch.org has done an incredible job in improving the technology on the website for the Family Tree. But, there will always be limitations and as the program evolves there may be difficulties in maintaining accuracy. As the records come online and the indexes are done. We should also remember that the accuracy of the record hints depends on the accuracy of the indexing. Obviously, Record Hints cannot be supplied for unindexed records. Therefore, indexing is crucial for the expansion of record hints technology.

All this means that you should closely examine record hints for accuracy and consistency. In every case, be sure and incorporate the information you learn from the accurate records. Determining whether or not a record hint is accurate may involve a degree of additional research.

In summary, do not blindly rely on record hints in any of the online programs.

Reclaim the Records liberates New Jersey Marriage Index, 1901-2016

With help from a volunteer, the Reclaim the Records organization has done it again! They have "liberated" the entire New Jersey Marriage Index for 1901-2016. Here is a quote from their 17th Newsletter:

Introducing the NEW JERSEY MARRIAGE INDEX, 1901-2016! These records are now totally digital, and totally free -- forever! Now you can research anyone who got married in the Garden State right from your home, still in your pajamas. 

We've posted these images at our favorite online library, the Internet Archive (archive.org). You can skip right to any year you want and flip through all the images, or you can download the records to your hard drive as JPG's, PDF's, and/or other formats. Each file is listed year-by-year (or occasionally by a year range), and then the marriages are listed alphabetically by surname. 

Just to be clear: these are images of the index, so this isn't a real text-searchable marriage database just yet. But rest assured that the usual genealogy websites we all know are going to start indexing projects and will make that happen eventually. (Yes, the Internet Archive does run automatic OCR on the text contained in the images, but the recognition quality isn't that great, so you're probably better off just reading through the images instead of trying to text-search.)

I am vitally interested in this effort as evidenced by the fact that my wife and I are preparing to move to the Washington, D.C. area to be full-time FamilySearch missionaries/record preservation specialists for FamilySearch and its sponsor The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Our responsibilities will include helping to digitize records which will then be available to genealogists.

Here is a screenshot of the Introduction to the New Jersey Marriage Index, 1901-2016 on the Internet Archive or Archive.org:

https://archive.org/details/njmarriageindex?sort=titleSorter

I strongly suggest reading the entire newsletter article. It is really a primer about how to go about helping make even more records available across the country. 

When is a source not a source? A Family History Challenge

A genealogical source citation should answer, at least, two questions:

• Where did the information come from?
• How can someone else find the same information?

How those questions are answered has developed into a major issue among genealogists. At one end of the spectrum are an extremely small number of academic/professional genealogists who have developed an elaborate "citation" system based primarily on various published systems such as the Chicago Manual of Style. 2017 and others. The professional/academic system of recording sources has become so elaborate that my 15th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style is 956 pages long.

Clear at the other end of the spectrum is the system of citations included on the standard family group record for many years Here is an example of the source field:

Unless you use very small letters, there isn't enough space here to encourage the entry of a source. 

Hmm. It is time to start defining my terms. 

The word ambiguous is defined as a word that has more than one meaning or interpretation. The word "source" as used by genealogists falls into that category. One meaning of the word focuses on where the information used by the genealogist to enter names, events, and other information was obtained. Another use of the word "source" is used as a synonym for the word "citation." The first use of the word "source" answers the first question above. Citing the source involves recording the identity of the place where the information was obtained. For example, if I find a reference to my ancestor in a book, the source is the book. When I use that information to enter names or dates or whatever and to my own records, i.e. a genealogy database program, the citation is the information I enter telling others about the book.

A genealogist's failure to record where the information was obtained renders the information useless to subsequent researchers. The concept here is that any information recorded about our ancestors, i.e. historical figures, needs to be documented with detailed information about where the recorded information was obtained so that subsequent researchers can verify whether or not the information is correct and also determine the degree of reliability of the information. 

Yes, I do have to keep repeating myself in order to make sure that what I'm saying is absolutely clear. No, I do not have detectable dementia yet. :-)

So when is the source not a source?

Even if the information supplied is referred to as a "source" if it fails to tell where the information was obtained it is essentially not a source. For example, here is an entry from FindAGrave.com:

Accompanying this entry are three photographs showing the grave marker for Dr. David Shepherd. The only information on the great marker is the name "Dr. David Shipherd" and the two dates. The information contained on grave markers is commonly considered to be a "source." However, the origin of the remaining information in the entry except for the identity of the cemetery is missing. It is helpful to have a citation to this FindAGrave.com entry and to see the photo of the grave marker, but there is no real way to determine where the information came from or when it was recorded. There is a link to David Shepherd's wife's grave in the same cemetery. However, that entry although also detailed, does not has the same three photos shown for her husband. Although a reference or citation to the FindAGrave.com memorial tells us where the researcher found the information, it does not tell us how we can find the same information since the FindAGrave.com information must have come from some other source. 

So, simply copying information that does not answer the questions above, does not help us determine the origin or reliability of the information and therefore has little or no value. By the way, grave markers are not necessarily accurate as to birth information. You cannot also assume that they are accurate as to the death information either. The marker could have been placed many years after the actual events. 

The real issue here is our ability to determine the reliability of the information we find in genealogical compilations such as online family trees and other types of publications of collected information. 

How to Analyze a Record in the FamilySearch Family Tree: Part Three -- What is missing?

In this post, I am continuing to show the process of analyzing a record in the FamilySearch.org Family Tree. Continuing from the earlier posts, the easy part is now done. The entry for Dr. David Shepherd Jr. has received its first clean up and the Record Hints have been added. What is next?

I am still concerned about the name including the title and the designation as a "Jr." The grave marker photo on FindAGrave.com has the name spelled "Shipherd" with the birthdate and death date as shown in the details above. There is also a second grave marker with the name "D Shipherd" and yet a third photo of a grave marker with the name, "Dr David." Does the existence of three grave markers imply three different people?

None of the sources suggested in the Record Hints gives any specific and timely information about his birth or the original spelling of this name. The information on the FindARecord.com website is not supported by any documents. You would have to make the assumption that the grave marker with the "Dr David" and the one showing "Shipherd" with the dates of birth and death, to be the same person. The date of burial reflects the place in FindAGrave.com but the date is estimated from the death date. So we are missing any documents or records that show the birth and death information other than the guesses.

In addition, the name here includes both a title (Dr.) and a suffix (Jr.) neither of which show up on any of the records so far.

From my experience, most beginning genealogists would think they were finished at this point. The entry is complete. There is a "source" for the information and it would seem to be time to move on to other people. Is that realistic? Not at all. It is still time to do some more research. According to what is in the record already, he lived until 1877. So he should be in the 1850, 1860 and 1870 U.S. Census records. This is an obvious record to find. Here is the 1870 U.S. Census record.

This supports the designation as "Dr." because his occupation is defined as "Physician." It also provides support for his wife's name. The record has "Sally Smith" but Sally is a common nickname for Sarah. The ages of David and his wife are also approximated by the ages in the census record. That provides a little more information and confirms what we already have. Next we find the 1860 U.S. Census:

This additional record raises some questions about the names of the children, but otherwise supports what is already in the Family Tree. However, David Shepherd is not shown as a physician, but as a farmer. Checking on Ancestry.com, I found eleven more Record Hints.

Here is the 1850 U.S. Census record from Ancestry.com.

There are a number of additional records and the children still need to be corrected and sources added. This is an ongoing project. I can keep adding records and correcting the entries until the sources become much harder to find.

As I continue to add sources, the confidence level of the entries become higher and higher.

Here are the previous parts of this series:

http://rejoiceandbeexceedingglad.blogspot.com/2017/10/how-to-analyze-record-in-familysearch_8.html
http://rejoiceandbeexceedingglad.blogspot.com/2017/10/how-to-analyze-record-in-familysearch.html

How to Analyze a Record in the FamilySearch Family Tree: Part Two -- Cleaning up the Entries

I selected Dr. David Shepherd Jr. as my "test subject" in this series focusing on analyzing the records in the FamilySearch.org Family Tree because of a lack of sources and some obviously serious issues. By the way, finding such a situation in the Family Tree is extremely easy for me with my ancestors because even after many years of cleaning up the entries, there is still a huge amount of work to be done. One reason, as I mentioned previously, for selecting this person as an example is that the entry is apparently complete and detailed even with the lack of sources. The information must have come from somewhere.

A little bit of research in the form of reading about the family in my daughter's blog, TheAncestorFiles, disclosed that there is apparently a book about the family. Here is the citation.

Barnett, Eula Mae Garrett. 1983. Shepherd family history, 1605-1966. Salt Lake City, Utah: Filmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah.

The book is a typed manuscript that has been microfilmed and the only copy is in the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. I have not yet made a trip to Salt Lake to view the microfilm, but I am guessing that the information came from that book.

The first step in cleaning up and adding sources to this record is to look at the list of "Birth Names." As I explained, these names are merely an artifact of the numerous submissions over the years and unless there is a real dispute about the person's birth name, these duplicate entries can be deleted especially the one about "Dr." being a title of nobility.

Before:

After:

I could also delete the reference to the census as a source, but the date and place might be helpful, so I left that entry alone.

Next, there is a whole list of sources. Here is are the before and after screenshots.

Before:

I had already added one source that had a reference to both a birth and death date. The FindAGrave.com entry is technically not a "source" because the information is usually not supported by documentation other than a photo of the grave marker but in this case, adding the entry supports the information already in the Family Tree. Here is a screenshot of the original entry from FindAGrave.com.

There is a long list of Record Hints.

The question always comes up about whether or not to add the Record Hints if they appear to be duplicates. It is a really good idea to add all the Record Hints, whether or not they appear to be duplicates in order to notify the computer program that it has made a right selection.  If it bothers you, you can detach the "duplicates" later, but be sure they really are duplicates and not just references to the same record. Duplicates come from the same source website etc.

Most of the sources were actually for children in the family. Here is the after screenshot of the sources added.

There were several copies of the same marriage record but the record was of a marriage license and would not necessarily change the date of the marriage. In addition, some of the records had been mistranscribed and had the date of 15 December

The entry was now "cleaned up" but the only record of his birth and death dates came from the FindAGrave.com record that had no further source for the information. Further research is certainly necessary, especially for the children.

Here is the first part of this series:

http://rejoiceandbeexceedingglad.blogspot.com/2017/10/how-to-analyze-record-in-familysearch.html