FamilySearch Family Tree Dark Matter Duplicates

How many duplicate entries are there in the FamilySearch.org Family Tree? I doubt that FamilySearch even knows the number. But I am convinced that there are many more than they or most anyone else suspects are there. Where are these duplicates? Well, first of all just like Dark Matter in the Universe, they are almost undetectable. You will not find these duplicates by checking the "Possible Duplicates" on the webpage for any of your ancestors.

Here is an example of undetected duplicates. If I look for Possible Duplicates for Thomas Hamilton LCJP-JQ2 this is what will show up as a result.

Hmm. Does this really mean that there are no duplicates? No. There are actually a considerable number of duplicates. How is this possible? Because this person's information is vague and incomplete so the search used for duplicates does not find all the variations. How do I know this? Because here are the results of a quick search on FamilySearch using the link on the Search Records part of his Detail page. Here are the results of the search.

There are 142 possible people on this search and some of them are likely to be the same person as my Thomas Hamilton or Hambleton. By the way, if I redo the search using the name "Hambleton" I get the same list of results. The real interesting thing about this entry is not the plethora of Family Tree Dark Matter Duplicates, but the fact that this person has no sources and there is no real connection yet showing that he is even related to me.

If you look at the screenshot above, you will see the icons that look like the beginning of a pedigree chart. These icons indicate that the records with the icons have been attached as a source to another person. Here is one of the others that happens to have some sources and is not in my family line.

Without doing a lot of research, there is no way to know which of all these sources to Thomas Hamilton or Hambleton are the same as my own entry. However, I commonly find this type of duplicate in my English research. Once I start doing the research, I will get more records and when I add some information, I immediately get more duplicate entries. I can spend an entire day on one family doing little more than merging duplicate entries.

So, if you think you are safe when the search shows that there are no duplicates, you might want to do a little more research and see if any of the records you find are attached to Dark Matter Duplicates.

President Wilford Woodruff's Journals Now Online

https://www.lds.org/church/news/more-than-7000-of-wilford-woodruffs-records-now-available-online?lang=eng

A recent news article on the Church News website announced the availability of more than 7,000 pages of the journals of President Wilford Woodruff, the fourth President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The Journals are available on the Church History Library website. Genealogists should be aware that the Salt Lake City, Utah Family History Library and the Salt Lake City, Utah Church History Library are two different buildings and organizations. They have complementary collections of historical documents and records. I have found valuable genealogical information in both collections.

That said, I decided to take a look at the Journals. Unfortunately, the articles about the online publication did not contain any links to the actual journals. After searching the catalog on the Church History Library website, I found some copies of the journals linked to digital copies on Archive.org. However, I could not find the journals. I finally found another news article with a link.

Here is the page with the list of journals and a link to the catalog page.

https://eadview.lds.org/findingaid/000120297/

I could not find this page using the catalog.

Managing Your Part of the FamilySearch Family Tree

Is your part of the Family Tree looking a little neglected and sad? Here is a checklist for working with the FamilySearch.org Family Tree. The items listed aren't in any kind of order but I have given them numbers for easy reference. They are all things that need to be done to have a happy, healthy Family Tree. For each of these suggested activities, When appropriate, I have provided a link to The Family History Guide for instructions about performing the required maintenance.

Why do we need to manage or maintain our part of the FamilySearch.org Family Tree? The answer is not simple. The Family Tree is essentially a cooperative and in a sense, a "public place" to share all of the information we know about our families with others who are part of our family or may be interested. All such virtual public places, just like real public places out in the real world, need to be constantly cleaned up and maintained. Maintaining the Family Tree is directly analogous to maintaining a garden or keeping our house neat and clean. 

Here we go. Here are my first examples of some entries that need to be cleaned up and then maintained.

#1 The name needs to be cleaned up. The addition of a second surname in parenthesis will not make the Family Tree Searches possible or easy. If there is an alternate spelling of a given name or surname in the records those variations should be added to the other information section of the Details page as Alternative Names. 

Here is the link to The Family History Guide to make this edit. Goal 6: Change information for ancestors in your tree.

#2 

The places and dates need to be standardized. Present and future functions of the Family Tree will depend on having accurate, standardized entries. The double date for Old Style/New Style will not standardize, you need to read the instructions about entering a non-standard entry. The existing place name for the Christening is actually two different places and cannot be resolved without research. My research indicates that the Butterton place is likely correct but I have yet to find a source to support either the place or date. There are no sources attached. By the way, he could not be born in Massachusetts Colony and Christened in England

This task has the same link to The Family History Guide. Goal 6: Change information for ancestors in your tree.

#3

I routinely delete all of these extra birth names. They are artifacts of all the previous submissions for this person over the years. They serve no purpose unless they are actually alternative or nicknames in which case they should be changed to reflect records with the alternative names. They are all duplicates of the name that should be the main entry in the Detail section. 

This task also has the same link to The Family History Guide. Goal 6: Change information for ancestors in your tree.

When these three steps are finished, the entry will look like this with the caveat that there are still no sources attached to verify this information. It actually turns out that finding information about this person may be a real and extensive challenge. If this happens, you may want to work on this person or leave it for someone else. But cleaning up the entries is helpful to future researchers. 

Most of the time, I automatically clean up entries as I see them in the Family Tree even if I am not going to do any more research. With this entry, there is a lot more work that needs to be done. 

A Family History Mission: The Video Version

A Family History Mission: Digitizing Records for Family Search by James Tanner

No. 77

Note: You can do a Google search for "A Family History Mission James Tanner" to see all the previous posts in this ongoing series. You can also search for "James Tanner genealogy" and find them or click back through all the posts.

It is not often that I get to turn my blog posts into a video. But thanks to the Brigham Young University Family History Library, I have a video about what we are doing here in Annapolis, Maryland at the Maryland State Archives. Did you know that for a short time, Annapolis was the capital of the United States? This video probably isn't like anything you have ever seen about a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints before. If you end up with any questions, post them to my blog as comments or you can send me an email or post to my Facebook page or whatever. 

Translated Videos on The Family History Guide

https://thefhguide.com/lang.html#0

Do you need to help someone with their family history in a language you cannot speak? This happens to me occasionally. The Family History Guide has a selection of basic training videos in the following languages:

• Spanish
• French
• Italian
• Portuguese
• Norwegian
• Swedish
• Chinese
• Korean

In addition, the website can use Google Translate to translate the page into more than 60 additional languages. Look at the image above and you will see the Google Translate link on the right side of the image.

As I return to Utah in a few months, my wife and I will once again be taking a more active part in helping, teaching, and promoting The Family History Guide. Here is a brief explanation of the website and organization from The Family History Guide Association website:

About The Family History Guide 

The Family History Guide is a free website that represents a best-in-class learning environment for family history. Its scope is broad, but its focus is narrow enough to help you achieve your goals, step by step. Whether you're brand new to family history or a seasoned researcher—or somewhere in between—The Family History Guide can be your difference maker. 

Mission Statement: "Our mission is to greatly increase the number of people actively involved in family history worldwide, and to make everyone's family history journey easier, more efficient, and more enjoyable."

Thoughts on Retirement

I don't ever plan on retiring. When I left my law practice, I was busier than ever with volunteering at the BYU Family History Library, helping to run several businesses, teaching classes, attending genealogy conferences, and writing books and webinars. Oh, also, taking a lot of photographs all over the country and into other countries. I think the dominant view of retirement is corrosive and counterproductive. The idea of a "life of leisure" is a copout from being a relevant member of society.

We lived most of our lives in Mesa, Arizona, one of the major "retirement" areas of the United States. What are the components of the so-called "active lifestyle" that is supposed to represent retirement? If you look at the ads for "retirement communities" you see the following:

• Vibrant resort 55+ community
• Award-winning golf
• Easy access to retailers and entertainment
• Affordable luxury
• Luxurious club
• Live the good life
• Active adults

None of that has even the slightest interest to me. I can't image what I would do if all I had to look forward to in life was another round of golf. Now, one of my requirements for a place live does involve access to Costco or Sam's Club, but I don't think that is what they mean by retailers. 

What are the advantages to where I live in Provo, Utah?

• A gathering center for my family
• Google Fiber high-speed internet
• Next to hiking trails up a canyon 
• Snow in the Winter
• Access to the second largest genealogy library in the world
• Access to a major university library
• Access to a major university
• Short drives to some of the most fabulous scenery in the world
• A good mass transit system

This list could go on and on. 

Over the years, I have had a lot of my friends retire from their jobs. In many cases, they have become listless, bored, and in some extreme cases, died after only a few years of retirement. Of course, we never know when we will die, but we don't have to sit around and wait for it to happen. 

I don't know if anyone has done a study, but I am guessing that genealogists live longer than the average. We always have one more project or one more family to research. 

If you are at odds about what to do with your retirement and still have some measure of health and mobility, I suggest getting involved in your community. Start by checking out this website: JustServe.org. I think you will find that there are lots of opportunities, not just to stay busy, but to make a difference in your life and the lives of others. 

A Family History Mission: An Insiders' Tour of the Library of Congress

No. 77

Note: You can do a Google search for "A Family History Mission James Tanner" to see all the previous posts in this ongoing series. You can also search for "James Tanner genealogy" and find them or click back through all the posts.

During the past few months working at digitizing records from FamilySearch at the Maryland State Archives, we have had the opportunity to meet a lot of new people. This is especially true of those in the Spa Creek Branch (Spanish) of the Annapolis, Maryland Stake. One of the members we got to know turned out to work at the Library of Congress and he graciously invited my wife and me to a personally conducted tour. We jumped at the opportunity and traveled downtown to the Library.

We arrived just before 8:30 am when the Library opens to researchers. Both of us have Library of Congress Readers Cards and we had already done some limited research in the Genealogy section. We spent about an hour and a half walking through all parts of the Library including those pertaining to receiving and processing the book orders from researchers.

We learned that the supports for the bookshelves in the shelving areas of the Library are actually part of the structure of the Library. We heard about several movies that had scenes filmed in Library and a lot of information about the past and future changes to Library. One highlight of the tour was getting a look at the Congressional Reading Room.

Many of the areas we visited did not allow photography. One important thing we learned was that not all the books and other publications in the Library are yet in the online digital catalog. They still maintain the huge 3x5 card catalog for reference. We asked about the digitization being done and found out that many of the books are going on the Internet Archive or Archive.org directly. This probably explains, in part, why the Internet Archive's digital book collection has been skyrocketing to over 17 million books and publications over the last couple of years. I will be writing more about the Library of Congress and the books that now on Archive.org in the near future.

This turned out to be a great opportunity.