For various reasons including the origins of data and the collaborative nature of FamilySearch Family Tree, there are many situations where incorrect data may exist in your family tree. This presentation will help users to learn from an experienced FamilySearch engineer strategies to understand and resolve commonly seen bad data situations.
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My Background
• Over 5½ years as a Senior Software
Engineer at FamilySearch
• Currently work on Family Tree, but try to use
all our products
• Have previously given several presentations
going into more detail on several similar
topics. To view/download these
presentations go to
http://www.slideshare.net/bakers84.
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Main Types of Family Trees
User Specific
FamilySearch
Genealogies
…
Most other online trees and
desktop records managers
Collaborative
FamilySearch
Family Tree
…
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User Specific Family Trees
…
Mary
Beus
1851 - 1936
Michael
Beus
1811 - 1888
Marianne
Combe
1813 - 1910
User1
… …
…
Mary
Beus
1851 - 1936
Michael
Beus
1811 - 1888
Marianne
Combe
1813 - 1910
User2
… …
…
Mary
Beus
1851 - 1936
Michael
Beus
1811 - 1888
Marianne
Combe
1813 - 1910
User3
… …
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FamilySearch Family Tree
• Freely available to anyone worldwide
• Reduces duplication of effort
• Increases collaboration to arrive at the best
information
• Information added outlives contributors
• Can link person profiles to additional
information like photos, stories, sources, etc.
We can all go further faster by working together
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How is Family Tree Like a Wiki?
“A wiki is a web application which allows
people to add, modify, or delete content in
collaboration with others.” – Wikipedia
Like Wikipedia and other wikis, Family Tree is
maintained by volunteers and changes made
to data on pages is reflected to all users and
change tracked.
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If a Collaborative Family
Tree Like FamilySearch
Family Tree is So Great
Why is My Family So
Messed Up There?
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Lots of Inputs + Imperfect Patrons + Imperfect Algorithms
≈
Lots of Bad Data + Lots of Duplication
Ancestral File
Record Extraction
Family Tree
More …
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Evidence Data is Getting Better
• Hundreds of millions of historical record sources
are attached to persons throughout the tree
• More than 40,000 merges per day continues to
reduce duplication in the tree
• Ratio of merges to unmerges/restores much
higher than combines to separates in nFS
• Tens of millions of photos, stories and other
memories are attached to persons in the tree
• Many non-LDS users are seeing value of
Family Tree and contributing new data
• Not many reported issues of edit wars
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Who are These Uncontactable
Contributors Making Changes?
FamilySearch – Means that an administrator made changes
either manually or via an automated job to fix up data
unknown4470317 – Indicates that this came from a system
previous to FamilySearch, but the original contributor
information has been lost. This most likely came from a PRF
or family group sheet contribution to FamilySearch in the past.
LDS Church Membership – Means that the LDS Church
membership system brought this information into the tree
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Play Nice With Others
• Remember those in “your” family are also other user’s families
• Watch out for symptoms of my-tree-itus
• Changes you make should leave persons outside your family
in a good state
• Use preventative measures to prevent recurring mistakes
• Collaborate and make sure others can contact you (i.e. make
your e-mail public)
• Apologize if necessary
• Remember that more and
more users of Family Tree are
not LDS
• Believe that others generally
aren’t trying to maliciously
mess up data
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Watch out for my-tree-itus
mytreeitus mī-trē-ˈī-təs (noun)
An inflammation common to many genealogists,
particularly heavy users of PAF. Symptoms include
extreme anxiety over others modifying their extensive
genealogical research, possessiveness of ancestors,
unwillingness to work in collaborative family trees and
disregard for others when removing erroneous
persons from their family. Usually occurring in more
mature adults and rarely seen in those under 40.
Learning to use FamilySearch Family Tree has been
shown to be an effective treatment for this affliction.
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Draw Pictures and Take Notes
• To help sort out mixed up
relationships and families
• To lay out what the data should
look like when you’re done
• To visualize merges and their
resulting persons
• Pay attention to person ids and
historical record ids
• Use multiple browser tabs when doing work to keep context
more easily. Using your mouse to middle click will open
something in new tab.
• If you’re really worried about how to do something correctly,
use https://beta.familysearch.org to try out things.
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Visualize Relationships
Parent Child Relationship
Father Mother
Child
Mother
Child
WifeHusband
Parent Child Relationship
with Single Parent
Couple Relationship
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F M
C
Tips
• Visualize or even
draw out the
relationships when
trying to decide
how to fix
something
• Pay attention to
person IDs
• Remember how to
edit and delete
relationships
M
C
WH WH
WH
…
…
F M
C
F M
C
F M
C
F M
C
F M
C
F M
C
F M
C
F M
C
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new.familysearch
Combine
Family Tree Merge
A B
A
B
A B
A’ B
Merging B into A will delete
(archive/tombstone) B,
potentially changing A with
some of B’s data.
Combining B into A will result
in A with B as an “inner
person” of A. Data from both
persons is preserved and can
be selected as viewable
values.
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Delete Person Deleting a person will
delete all relationships that
person was in, orphan any
LDS temple ordinances
and won’t keep a link to the
real person.
Use with care!
Only recommend using
when you’re sure the
person is fictitious (Ex.
wrong gender)
Often, a relationship should
be deleted or a merge
should be done.
Man Wife
WifeMan
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Deleting Relationships
Deleting relationships often leaves
people “floating” in the tree too.
Conscientious genealogists will try
to make sure the result is as
complete as possible.
For example, say your ancestors
have a child in the tree that isn’t
theirs. If you just delete the
relationship, that child is now
“floating”, greatly reducing its
chances of ever being found
again. A better solution is to link
that child up with correct parents,
assuming you can determine who
the correct parents are.
Be aware the same is true when
you don’t keep relationships during
merges.
Father Mother
Child
Father Mother
Child
New
Father
New
Mother
Child
Father Mother
Remove child from incorrect parents and
link to correct parents
Remove child from incorrect parents
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Dropping Relationships During Merges
Be aware that “floating” or
“orphaned” people are also
created when relationships are
not kept during merges.
For example, say a father,
mother and child are all three
duplicated in the tree. If you
don’t keep the relationships by
moving them left during the
merge process, the duplicate
mother and child are cut off
when merging the fathers.
Instead, the duplicate mother
and child should remain so they
can be merged too.
Father1 Mother1
Child1
Merge Father2 into Father1 and copy relationships
Merge Father2 into Father1 without copying relationships
Father2 Mother2
Child2
Father1’ Mother1
Child1
Father2 Mother2
Child2
Father1’
Mother1
Child1
Mother2
Child2
Father2
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Leave a Trace, but
Keep Your Room Clean Too
• Base actions on verifiable sources as much as possible
• Use both halves of FamilySearch.org – Tree and Records
• Provide good reason statements
• Mind the indicator icons - eradicate icons to achieve
regular small successes and find persons not in the tree
yet
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Critical Paradigm To Understand
The best way
to find people who need LDS temple work is
to find people who are NOT in the tree yet
The best way
to find people not in the tree yet is
to find them in a historical record with
someone who is already in the tree
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Achieving Regular Small Successes
• Look to resolve indicator icons on your relatives
• Data Problems
• Record Hints
• Research Suggestions
• Ordinance Icons
• Add any memories you have
• Photos
• Documents
• Stories
• Audio
• Try to work from closest to more distant
• Start with closest direct ancestors
• Make sure children for direct ancestors are recorded and also
have indicator icons resolved
• Move to grandchildren and great-grandchildren of your direct
ancestors
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Phone a Friend When Needed
• Contact support when you need to
Call 1-866-406-1830,
Live Chat, E-mail or Local Help
• Escalate if necessary
• Track cases you’ve submitted at
https://familysearch.org/help/mycases
• Report abuse if you believe
someone is purposely destroying
data
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Protect Yourself by Staying Informed
• Use the Watch List more effectively
• Learn to understand and use the change log better
• Read the blog, subscribing if you’d like -
https://familysearch.org/blog
• Embrace change, don’t be afraid of it. Click on new
things to see what they do. I don’t think you can mess up
anything in a single click, but be sure to read warnings.
• Take advantage of training resources online and in your
local area
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Use Underused and Powerful
Features of the Watch List
• Navigation to distant relatives
• Filtering by various criteria
• Sorting by various criteria
• View latest changes over the past 30 days
• Filter and sort latest changes
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Sample Blog Post on This Topic
https://familysearch.org/blog/en/common-mistakes-family-tree-data/
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Realize Some Things Aren’t Fixable Yet
Coming Soon
• Contacting those who don’t have public e-mails
• Being able to perform LDS ordinances held by
someone else for over 2 years
Coming Sometime Later
• Merging Individuals of Unusual Size (IOUSs)
• Moving LDS ordinances to correct persons
• Proposing modifications to read only persons and
relationships
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Individuals of Unusual Size (IOUS)
If the resulting record in
new.familysearch.org would have
more than 250 combined records,
persons cannot be merged. This is
sometimes called an Individual of
Unusual Size (IOUS). There isn’t
anything that can be done to merge
these persons until synchronization
with new.familysearch is turned off.
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Specific Common Problem Scenarios
Disclaimer: The following scenarios aren’t intended
to be exhaustive or prescriptive for every
situation, instead they are trying to illustrate
common problems and strategies to resolve them
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People that don’t belong in your tree
(i.e. incorrect parents, spouses or children)
• Realize that delete person is rarely the correct thing to do
• Deleting relationships, is often the right thing, but
remember to leave the other persons in as good of a
state as possible
• Relationships can be deleted (or modified) from the Edit
Couple and Edit Parents links
• Even when deleting a relationship, it is often a good idea
to find or create a person to fill the gap just made in the
relationship
• To leave the other family in a good state, you may need to
change a parent for a set of children one by one
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Example
Say after researching, you are confident Frederick
and Anna don’t belong in this family, but to a different
George Paul and Mary Bass
Click on the Edit Parents icon. Then you could simply
delete the relationship, but a better solution would be
to either change the parents one at a time or remove
and then add the correct parents. You may need to
create new persons in the tree to leave the persons
you’re removing from your family in as good of a state
as possible.
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Same parent listed twice, one with a
spouse and the other without
Delete each of the parent
child relationships without the
spouse.
Make sure that the person ids
of the children and mother
match, however.
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Multiple Persons in a Family
with Similar Information
• Usually merging people is the correct way to resolve
• Pay attention to person IDs
• Remember to keep relationships during merges – don’t
leave people “floating”
• You’ll often need to perform multiple merges to clean up a
family fully
• Due to system restrictions, you may not be able to clean
up some duplicates now
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Pop Quiz
Which persons
should be merged
and why? Should
any persons be
removed from a
family?
Remember the
guiding principles
and that sometimes
more research is
needed to move
forward.
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Incorrectly combined/merged persons
• First, determine whether the incorrect merge occurred in Family Tree. If
it did, you can unmerge or restore
• Signs of incorrect combines in new.familysearch
• Several completely different birth names are listed as alternate names
• IGI sources are attached for completely different people
• Multiple sets of spouses and children that don’t belong
• Follow the steps in these Help Center articles to correct incorrectly
combined persons prior to Family Tree.
• https://familysearch.org/ask/salesforce/viewArticle?urlname=Dividing-
incorrectly-combined-records-in-Family-Tree
• https://familysearch.org/ask/salesforce/viewArticle?urlname=Dividing-
Incorrectly-combined-records-in-Family-Tree
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Two Ways to Restore After a Merge
1. Unmerge
• Undoes all merge changes, restoring both persons to the pre-
merge state
• Can currently only be done if no changes have taken place on
either person since the merge
• To unmerge, click on the Show All link in the Latest Changes
box to the right of a person who was merged into. Then click
on the Unmerge button and enter a reason for the unmerge.
2. Restore Person
• Restores the person who was deleted to the pre-merge state,
but leaves the merged person alone
• Is only option if changes have taken place since the original
merge
• To restore a person, bring up the deleted person page and
click on the Restore Person link.
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Another User Deleted Someone From Your Tree
• Determine whether they were deleted
by a merge or a delete
• Contact the user to help understand
why they did what they did
• Unmerge if possible,
otherwise restore
• Report abuse if necessary
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Another user “hijacked” someone in your tree
and made them a completely different person
• First seek to understand, contacting the user if possible
• Try to find a way to record both real people in the tree if
there really are two people
• Report abuse if necessary
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Incorrect Computer Algorithm Suggestions
that Won’t Go Away
• Record hint for a record for a different person
• Click Not a Match after bringing the hint up
• Research suggestion or data problem that isn’t true
• Click the X in the popup showing the suggestion
• Possible duplicate that isn’t the same person
• Select Not a Match on the possible duplicate
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Dismiss Research Suggestions
• Some research suggestions and data problems are not dismissable
• Click on Show Details to view dismissed suggesitons/problems
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A Historical Record Is Already Attached To
Another Person
• Determine which persons in the tree each person in the
record are currently attached to and which they should be
• Detach incorrect attachments and attach the correct ones
• May need to merge persons in the tree if there are
duplicates
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Incorrect Data on a Person
• Data is incorrect or superfluous
• Just fix it, leaving good reasons and hopefully sources
• Apparent duplicate sources
• Determine if the sources are truly the same record id,
detaching if duplicate
• Duplicate record sets within FamilySearch are being
retired
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Can’t Reserve or Print LDS Ordinances
• Understand reasons why a person doesn’t qualify
• Can’t reserve persons outside close relatives born within
110 years
• Submit a case showing how you got permission
• Can’t reserve with duplicates or data problems
• Resolve the duplicate (merge or not a match) or data
problem (fix or dismiss)
• Shows a warning on reservation list that wasn’t there
before
• Determine reason why person no longer qualifies and
resolve or unreserve
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Confused About How to Perform Merges or
Undo Them?
I gave an extensive presentation on this at the 2013 conference.
Go to the following links for a presentation and handout on this topic.
http://www.slideshare.net/bakers84/merging-people-in-familysearch-family-tree-presentation
http://www.slideshare.net/bakers84/merging-people-in-family-search-family-tree-syllabus
Three key guiding principles:
1. Merge the person with less data into the person with more data if
possible, using Switch Positions if necessary.
2. Copy all data unique to the right hand side, unless you know it is
not correct
3. Prevent bad merges for situations such as twins or successive
children with same name by marking as not a match
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Wrong Photo, Story or Document is
Attached
• Contact user who uploaded photo, if possible
• Detaching the photo is possible even though
memories are not open edit like the tree
• Leave comments on the photo or other memory