Genealogy from the perspective of a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon, LDS)

Monday, July 4, 2016

The Deluge Begins: Merging, Editing and Corrections to the FamilySearch Family Tree



Genesis 7: 11-12
11 ¶In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.
12 And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.
Well, we do have a deluge of sorts going on with the FamilySearch.org Family Tree. I received my email for the changes made to my watched individuals and it was pages and pages long; hundreds of changes. 


I did make a few of the changes myself. I have been working away on the lines that were previously blocked by the "Can't Be Merged At This Time" folks. 

I have noticed that when a person makes only a very few changes it is very likely that the changes are not supported by sources or are wrong. Those who spend a lot of time making changes are more likely to be working from sources and also making more appropriate changes. For example, if some one adds a single memory usually a photo, it is my experience that it is likely a duplicate. See the following where someone added yet another copy of the photo of Sydney Tanner:


Don't get me wrong. The fact that many changes are being made is a very good thing. But it does keep those of us who are watching a lot of people really busy checking to see what was done. 

Watching the people you are interested in is a very good idea. Not only do you get a weekly update on the changes, but you also get listed a "watcher" on the people who are being watched. When someone tries to make a change, there is a notice of how many people are watching that person. This is probably a useful deterrent to making unsupported changes. 

As I went through the list of changes for this week, I was interested to see people making changes to the same person I was working on on the same day. I was also pleased to see that someone had started to work on the Mayflower passengers. 

It is an interesting time to be doing genealogical research. 

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