THE CASE FOR MOVING TO “OUR TREE”

A FAMILYSEARCH WHITE PAPER

APRIL 2011

- Until a recent fix, some records contained EXECUTIVE SUMMARY disputes, which prevent all corrections. his white paper discusses upcoming - Many key individuals in a family tree have T changes to the new FamilySearch website so much bad information that correcting (new.familysearch.org). It will: them seems impossible. • Discuss known challenges found in new.familysearch.org. THE SOLUTION • Describe potential solutions that FamilySearch To improve the data in the family tree, will provide. information will be divided into three types: • Discuss concerns that you may have. • Sources show where information in the tree • Provide a place where you can tell came from. FamilySearch about your concerns. • Conclusions are the best available facts about each individual in the tree. Sources strengthen HE OALS T G conclusions. The new FamilySearch website has made great • Opinions are variations of the conclusions, progress in decreasing duplicate temple work such as theories, variations, or contradictions and increasing the number of found in various sources. members participating in family The genealogical information from history. We have not yet met the Pedigree Resource File, However, it has not yet met the the goal of reducing Ancestral File, Church membership goal of reducing duplicate duplicate research, records, and Church temple research, which requires an which requires an records will not automatically accurate, source-based family tree accurate, source-based become conclusions, as they are whose data endures longer than family tree whose data now. Instead, they will be large any of the researchers who endures longer than any resources of “opinion” data that contribute to it. of the researchers who you can search and use to create contribute to it. conclusions. THE CHALLENGE To allow a community of interested To achieve this goal, researchers to identify, record, and new.familysearch.org needs to solve these maintain an accurate set of conclusions in the problems: family tree, the family tree feature will be • A lack of meaningful sources. The consistent modified to: use of sources prevents errors and minimizes • Remove features that prevent you from contention among researchers working on the correcting other contributors’ data. same lines. • Add new collaboration, monitoring, and roll- • The inability to correct errors. The database back features to help control this more open contains a lot of information that has been environment. submitted over the last several decades. When you find errors, you probably cannot make the required corrections because: - You cannot correct others’ errors. - Others can mess up your own work by combining the wrong records together.

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to correct or remove errors. You cannot change INTRODUCTION or remove what other people contributed. he new FamilySearch website • The system performs slowly at peak times and T (new.familysearch.org) allowed Church with many concurrent users. members, for the first time, to see all of the information about their ancestry that had been LACK OF MEANINGFUL SOURCES submitted to the Church over the years. This Meaningful sources and citations provide many data appeared in many different systems, but it benefits. They can: was never all in the same system at the same time. • Prove or disprove the accuracy of the information in a family tree. President Gordon B. Hinckley set two important • Reduce or eliminate duplicate research goals for new.familysearch.org: required to validate others’ work. • Reduce duplication of temple ordinances and • Reduce conflict in collaborative research family history research. efforts. • Increase the number of Church members Data in new.familysearch.org lacks meaningful participating in family history. sources and citations for many reasons: This first version of the system has been • Legacy systems such as Ancestral File and the successful at reducing ordinance duplication. It International Genealogical Index did not has not yet addressed duplication of research. It preserve a contributor’s sources. is clear that our next goal must be to create an • Some contributors did not track sources or accurate, source-based family tree whose data contribute them with their data. endures longer than any of the researchers who • Although you can add sources into contribute to it. This is the only way that we will new.familysearch.org, the feature, as it ultimately reduce the time-consuming currently exists, is deficient and gets little use. duplication of research. Even when sources are available, you cannot provide images or links to online records. If you BARRIERS TO AN want to validate the research, you have to find ACCURATE, SOURCE- and examine the records manually. BASED FAMILY TREE INABILITY TO CORRECT ERRORS When users work in new.familysearch.org, ith its current features and data, many feel overwhelmed and discouraged. They new.familysearch.org cannot become an W may have spent years doing original research accurate, source-based family tree for several and correcting prior research. Then the reasons: problems all come back, and they have to start • Due to a lack of meaningful sources, it is all over again. Even if they’re willing, they impossible to tell which information is most simply cannot make all of the required accurate. Further, if you enter sources, the corrections because: system does not indicate which versions of a • You cannot correct others’ errors. name, event, or other information have • Others can mess up your work. sources. Other users may never see them. • The record contains disputes. • Even when you have sources that prove which • Many key individuals in a family tree have so information is correct, it is nearly impossible much bad information that correcting them seems almost impossible.

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You Cannot Correct Others’ Errors Others Can Mess Up Your Work In the first design of new.familysearch.org, There is one type of change where another user researchers told us that they would not can change hours of your painstaking work: the participate in any system that allowed others to combining and separating of records. change their data. They feared that less Combining duplicate records takes a long time experienced people would replace their accurate and expertise. It can take even longer to identify data with family legends and other errors. records that should not have been combined and Consequently, features were added to prevent separate them back out. others from changing what you contribute. After you spend the time on these corrections, When you are an experienced, knowledgeable you quickly find out that they are not researcher, this seems like a good way to protect permanent. The system lists the bad records as your careful work. “possible duplicates” to the next person. That Consider, however, that the system provides person, lacking your expertise in your family this protection to all of the information in it, not line, recombines them. just the information that is well researched and well documented. Large Amounts of Duplication Since its release, it is apparent that the Since only the original contributor can make duplication of information was a more serious corrections, you have to contact that contributor problem than previously understood. Some and convince him or her to do the needed work. individuals have hundreds of duplicate records. This collaboration adds obstacles. Consider: They have thousands of pieces of information, • Much of the legacy data that was submitted to mostly inaccurate. Ancestral File and other early systems has Many of these large records are early LDS remained unclaimed. The original contributors Church members with many descendants. have moved, quit doing family history, died, Others are members of other well-researched or are unavailable for other reasons. family lines, including royalty. They are • Some contributors do not provide contact gateway ancestors who connect millions of information. people to their heritage. • Even when contributors provide an e-mail Take, for example, John Case (see the screenshot address, you may not get a response. on the next page). You can easily tell that his is a • There may be multiple contributors. You may not be able to contact them all, much less problem record because of the triangle next to his name. convince them to make the required change. • Temple ordinances were performed using His record contains 812 combined records, with incorrect information. The person who over 10,000 pieces of information. If you dig into originally contributed the information for his details a bit, you’ll see: ordinances might be able to change his or her • 39 spouses. own submission. However, the names, events, • Over 50 siblings connected to 4 sets of parents. and relationships that are stored with the • Hundreds of children. temple ordinances cannot be corrected or • 19 versions of his name, some obviously removed. System administrators can belonging to someone else. sometimes help, but the process can be • 25 versions of his birth date, ranging from daunting, and providing the required 1619 to “about 1800.” documentation can be time consuming.

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• Birthplaces in Massachusetts, Connecticut, identify the most accurate pieces of Rhode Island, Ireland, and England. information to be shown on the tree. At least 8,000 of Case’s descendants submitted Let’s discuss each part in more detail. him to the Church. When the database that became the new.familysearch.org was first EMPHASIS ON SOURCES created, John Case’s record contained each of Consistent use of sources prevents errors and these 8,000 submissions, resulting in more than minimizes contention among researchers 75,000 pieces of information. working on the same lines. To prevent records like this from causing the To place emphasis on sources, the information system to crash, duplicate pieces of information in the tree will be separated into sources, were deleted. (No unique data was deleted.) conclusions, and opinions. This division will This stabilized the system, but records like this help you identify which pieces of information are one of the main reasons that the system are reliable and supported by sources. performs slowly. • You will add sources with a new sources With so many errors, and so many contributors feature. This new feature lets you upload a who are probably unavailable, it is unlikely that scanned document, enter a citation that the records of crucial gateway ancestors like identifies where it came from, and link the John Case will ever be correct unless the system scanned document and citation to individuals itself changes. in the tree. If you do not have a scanned copy of the source, you can submit the complete SOLUTION citation without the image. You will be able to save this source and reuse it as needed. The solution is large and will not be • Conclusions are the best set of available facts implemented all at once. The changes can be about an individual in the tree. Each divided into these basic categories. individual will have one set of conclusions, • Place much more emphasis on sources and which you and a community of interested citations. researchers maintain. Conclusions without • Create a family tree that allows the sources are considered weak. Anyone can add genealogical community to collaborate and

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a source to strengthen a conclusion or replace COLLABORATIVE CONCLUSIONS a weak conclusion with a stronger one. As new.familysearch.org evolves, the features • Opinions are variations of the conclusions that prevent you from correcting other about an individual. They may be “theories” contributor’s data will be removed. A that you post so that you can work with others community of people who are interested in their to substantiate them with sources or disprove lines in the family tree will be able to evaluate them. They may simply be variations sources and maintain the most accurate set of submitted over time or contradictions found in conclusions possible. various sources. This type of change might alarm many of you. Think of the conclusions as a sort of “beefed up” Let us try to reassure you on two levels: individual summary and the opinions as all of the variations shown in the details. • User Behavior. In the current new FamilySearch website, the individual’s Data from the Pedigree Resource File, Ancestral summary works in a collaborative manner. File, and Church membership records will not Any user can change the summary. Everyone automatically become conclusions, as they are sees just one summary. How the summary now. Instead, they will be large resources of gets used has been monitored. The result is “opinion” data that you can search. If you find that less experienced researchers do not good information, you can add it to the usually change summaries because they conclusions in the tree, and then add even more assume someone with more expertise has sources to strengthen those conclusions. already made the best choice. Temple records will provide two types of data: Other collaborative websites find this same • The ordinance dates and places will be sources behavior pattern. Most people change that indicate the ordinances are done. something only when they really do have • The accompanying genealogical data will better information. Experts monitor their become another set of “opinion” data that you subject area and quickly correct errors, can search and use to form conclusions. That unintentional and otherwise. means, for example, that the system will not • New features. To control this more open automatically generate a marriage relationship system, new collaboration, monitoring, and simply because a sealing-to-spouse ordinance roll-back features will be added: was done. You could use the temple record as A discussions feature was added in the a source that supports your conclusion of a - August 2010 release. Each individual now marriage event and relationship. has a discussion page where you can discuss Separating the data in this way also allows the the data with other interested researchers. system to perform more quickly since it can - A watch feature was added in the December bring up one small set of conclusions instead of 2010 release of the system. It lets you bringing back all of the information at once. monitor the individuals of interest to you Large records like John Case’s will no longer and receive notifications when their cause problems because: information changes. In a future release, features will be added • He too will have one set of conclusions. - that let you see a history of the changes made • He will have many fewer incorrect spouses and children because the ordinance records no to an individual. You can undo any change longer automatically create relationships. and explain why that change needed to be undone.

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- The report abuse feature will be available in These priorities will probably change somewhat more places. This will allow you to handle over time. Use of the system will be monitored conflicts and report deliberate attempts to and your feedback for insights about the correct vandalize the data. priority order will be evaluated. - Community roles will provide expert community members the tools they need to WHAT SHOULD YOU DO monitor activity in the tree, resolve issues, and “lock” ancestors when heated issues NOW? need a chance to cool before further changes emember, the old features that prevented are made. R others from changing your accurate work are the same features that prevent you from TIME FRAME correcting others’ mistakes. The new features he time frame for seeing these changes is will provide many “checks and balances” to T difficult to predict. As previously noted, the help you maintain the accuracy of the data that discussions and watch features already exist. means so much to you. Sources will be much more visible and accessible. You can monitor The following features will be added in your line and undo any errors that others upcoming releases. The exact dates have yet to introduce. You will be able to collaborate with be determined, but the priority order is others much more easily and report intentional currently as follows: abuse quickly. • Attach or link to sources and citations. Please share your thoughts with us. Go to • Separate Ancestral File, Pedigree Resource www.familysearch.org, and click Feedback, File, and temple ordinance data into record then Share your ideas. Enter your thoughts, sets. marking your comments with the product name • Add a history of changes, and allow changes Family Tree. to be undone. • Create a family tree containing conclusions. • Create community roles. FamilySearch is a trademark of Intellectual Reserve, Inc. and is registered in the United States of America and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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FamilySearch, International Salt Lake City, Utah

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