Do you contribute to the FamilySearch tree? If so, do you follow any of the individuals you have contributed to? The ability to ‘follow’ an individual is one of the features I like about the FS tree.
If I simply click the star next to the word FOLLOW on an individuals profile screen, I can then get notifications about changes made to that profile.
After clicking the star, that individual will be added to my ‘following’ list and I will get a weekly notification of changes maded to anyone on that list. While I often forget to check those notifications on a weekly basis, they remain on my ‘notifications’ screen for several weeks. These changes can be as simple as someone adding a source or a memory.
Fortunately, these notifications will also alert me to relationship changes. While I’d love to get a notification about finding a parent for one of my brick walls, I haven’t had that good fortune. However, these notifications also alert me to changes in the family structure. Recently, I was notified of such a change to the Nelson G. Crawford family.
When I looked at the family, I discovered that a second family for Nelson was created with some of the children in both families.
The sourcing for this second family was a GEDCOM file and FamilySearch’s copy of the 1850 census. The original family had the 1850 census attached but it was the Ancestry version. Nelson’s wife, Martha Smith, and three of their children were duplicated in the second family. To correct this, I started working with Martha. (Word of advice – start with the children and then do the parents)
When I started the merge process for Martha, it compared the vital record information for both profiles.
Since the birth and death dates did not match, I searched Find a Grave to see which set of dates was correct. I found that the dates on the ‘new’ Martha were the same as on the tombstone. I also checked the change log to see whether there was a source for these original dates. When I found that FamilySearch added the dates without an attached source, I felt comfortable with changing them to match the Find a Grave record.
After changing the birth and death dates so they matched Find a Grave, I continued with the merge process.
When I clicked to continue, I then had to consider whether the family members and residence information associated the the duplicate was copied into the original person replacing what was already associated with the original Martha Smith.
I elected to NOT add the children and residence. NOTE: I should have merged the children first and then merged the parent. The way I did the merging actually orphaned the duplicate children. Thankfully, I had the screenshot showing their ID numbers. After merging, Martha Smith, I then had to merge the 3 children that were also duplicated: James, Mary and Amanda.
As with the mother, I had to consider “replacing” the siblings. I did not ‘replace’ the siblings.
After finishing the mergers, I also messaged the person who made the changes explaining what I had done and why.
This was a reminder of why I follow my ancestors and why I should pay attention to those notification notices.
Yes, I do work on the FSFT from time to time and definitely follow profiles I’ve created or contributed to in order to catch some of the weird things other people do. I check a couple of times a month to see what’s been happening – otherwise it would be the ONLY genealogy work I do and I prefer to do more specific research, rather than just fixing the work of others.
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