Life is Change~Growth is Optional
If I could impress upon you that this is perhaps the most important lesson we have had in our staff training to date would it grab your attention and make you want to have it in your toolbox when doing your own Family Tree entries and helping others? I hope so. Because that is exactly what I am telling you.
First let's review what makes the
familysearch.org Family Tree unique. Once we get the Family Tree pruned by merging the duplicates that run rampant in it right now, there will only be ONE node for every individual that has ever or will ever live on the earth in the Family Tree.
What that means is that each individual will land up with only one PID number on the tree. Not numerous numbers like we see in some cases now. That means that all the person's information will be in one place. You will not be able to work on a person with one PID while an unbeknownst person works tandomly with you on the same person with a different PID. Until the duplicates have been merged into one, as is often the case currently, this does occur. At such times the two people working simultaneously never cross paths. When the merging has occurred they will. "This is true to the point that once there is only one node for an ancestor you will be able to see another person's keystrokes on your screen." James Tanner
This will stop the incessant duplication of efforts, allow for collaboration between users and stop duplication of ordinance work. That one node will be his or hers forever and exclusively, on FT where all the information for that person will reside. Yes, that does include good, as well as, bad information
for now. It may also include some disagreements between users. If this becomes an issue Family Tree has interventions in place that can freeze one or both of the accounts for a period of time with warnings. But hopefully that will be rare. So once we have everything together in one place,
the sourced information will trump any wishful thinking information until the truth is sifted from the errors and can be seen by everyone at anytime.
Granted, this will take awhile to accomplish. In the meantime, you can set your page exactly as you want it and then click "Watch." For now I like to keep a record of that PID number rather than search by name, especially in the cases of multiple PIDs right now. That way whenever anyone else comes to visit with new information to include you will be notified by email. You can delete relationships that are incorrect and you can add information that you have sources for. In fact, you not only can but you are highly encouraged to do so. Family Search/Family Tree is counting on us to clean up the tree once and for all. This is a form of crowd sourcing not unlike indexing when you think about it!
It is a big group of people working together to accomplish a great work!
Our editing will delete relationship errors and remove them from the page until it is clean and exactly the way you know it is to be. Make sure you have sourcing and a good reason why you are adding or removing relationships and that you include them in the editing boxes provided.
This would not be "Because this is my father!" It would be something like, "This record verifies his birth year and place and his parents."
One word of caution. Do not delete a person unless you know that he or she is a fictitious person. That is a lot different than removing a relationship. There have been some problems with this and Family Search reported at the Genealogy Conference that they are working on putting some restrains on that option so that it is not as easy to accomplish with the click of one button.
Think of editing this way. Not all records for every person have been discovered yet by you or others. What if someone added something to your ancestor that brought new light to their life and their story? Would you not want to embrace it?
Of course you would if they had a legitimate source attached.
Attaching sources is of utmost importance for accurate genealogy. We also have to let go of the notion that a deceased person is "Our Ancestor" because they are an ancestor to many. We don't own them, we share them. That is what families actually are when you think about it! Our relatives!
I know a lot of people feel resistant to sharing their "life's work" with the world. That is an issue that one must ponder and eventually come to terms with on some level. My thought is my work has been a service and I don't want it to get lost after I am gone. To me the sharing is part of my legacy to leave behind for people of the future. I can preserve it by sharing it now. You have to come to your own conclusions in this department.
So about ten days ago Family Tree added a very useful tool to the person page of the people in the tree. Let me illustrate with my Dad's page.
Family Search has taken the mystery out of searching records on their site, to some degree, by giving us a hand up. I know some of you are experts in searching for their records...I am not one of them. Yet! It makes sense that they know their search engine better than we do, right? So they have taken our person and found some records for us to check and attach if they match! Not all will match but some will.
When you click on search records this page above opens. In column #2 in the
screen shot you will see your person's name as a link to the left
of the documents FS selected for you to examine. Click on the name and
the record will open.
In many cases the image of the original document is right there for you along with the digitized copy. By clicking on the person's name it will open the document and let you peruse it. When looking at the digitized copy of the record you will note in the upper right hand corner a little link that says copy. Just click on it at that time. You can then paste it into the notes later in the process.
It will then ask you a few questions and then if it is your person you can attach it directly to the person page of your ancestor. Hallelujah, was my first thought! You can then see it in your tree under the heading "Sources" at the bottom of the screen and you can then add notes and tags to identify which tags apply to the information on that particular source. Does it contain information of his birth, christening, marriage, death, or burial? Click what applies.
In the notes section you can add things that are of particular interest in the record and then you should add the copied version of the digitized record. This is in case a URL may not function properly or you go to a paid site that will not allow you to see the record without a subscription.
{Note on the left hand side of the person page above, they have even
given you various filters to try different avenues right there. Most of
these first records are pertaining to birth and death and census records. Other things
can be searched for right here and attached as well. They have thought
of everything to make this as painless and profitable as possible.}
If you want to go to my father's page and check it out you can do so by following this path:
familysearch.org> Family Tree>Find>Select ID Number rather than default name for searching>enter KHB9-1YR Open up the details of the sources to see how it is done.
Again you have to put your hands on it, to learn it which brings me to Linda's excellent work sheet below and her challenge at the end. If you have never done another one, please do this one.
More members are starting to trickle in to the Library now and we need to know how to help them and how to make the magic of Family Tree come alive for them. Sometimes we only get one shot at it.
And I cannot say enough for the video of Elder Moon's below. He talks about the source box also but don't get too caught up in all of that right now. First just learn how to do this from the person page. Both he and Linda have works below that will clarify and add additional understanding to sourcing the records found in Family Search and adding those sources to Family Tree. I'll do another post on the source box if there is interest after we try this out. This is really fun, enjoy it!
Linda Bailey's lesson: Thank you Linda! Glad you are back!
http://tinyurl.com/mzf72og
Elder Leland Moon's video:
http://broadcast.lds.org/elearning/fhd/Community/en/FamilyTreeCurriculum/levelone/Lesson%205%20Sourcing/Attach%20Tag%20source%20FT%20single%20name.mp4
I am not sure if I have even mentioned the tiny url site before or not. The long link above which seems so cumbersome can be made into one like the one below at http://tinyurl.com. Below is the same video in a tiny URL than the one above.
His videos are amazing! To find all the Moon Videos go to familysearch.org and search for Family Tree Curriculum in the Get Help that can be accessed from the home page on the tool bar near the top right side of the page. You can also find it directly on the right side bar of this blog near the top. It will remain there indefinitely for easy access.
Until next time...Happy Sourcing!
Bonnie
Lots
of new features have been added to Family Tree recently. Each one is
helpful, but together they make family history easier than ever.
