WHO CHANGED MY TREE? AND WHY

James Tanner does a great job of analyzing those pesky changes that mess up our family trees.

Rejoice, and be exceeding glad...

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An Update on Understanding the Changes in the FamilySearch Family Tree Posted: 01 Jul 2019 11:25 PM PDT Genealogy is primarily a very personal activity. Recording the history of your family whether by oral history, diary, journal, or entries in a Bible or other family book is also a cultural activity. As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we have also inherited a set of unique religious doctrines that provide some motivation for being involved in family history. But we often do not recognize that recording family history (genealogy) is a worldwide cultural activity that has operated throughout history. Members of the Church who have only heard about "genealogy" through the channel of the Church's doctrine and instruction are often surprised that people "outside" the Church are even aware of or interested in genealogy. The common thought process is "I am not interested in doing my genealogy despite the teachings of the Church so why would someone outside the Church be interested." Even though the FamilySearch.org Family Tree has now been freely available as a family history tool, many members of the Church have yet to even open the website and look at their part of the Family Tree and a significant percentage of the Church membership has less than four generations of their family information on the website. However, there were approximately 70,000 people who crossed the Plains and are defined as "pioneers." The descendants of these pioneers constitute a sizable percentage of the present-day membership of the Church. Much of the accumulated genealogical information that ultimately seeded the FamilySearch.org Family Tree came from the pioneers' descendants. This reservoir of information included a hodgepodge of family history with a lot of entry-level genealogy primarily passed down through families sprinkled with the work of a few dedicated genealogists. There was no standardization or review of this massive amount of data. In addition, by its very nature of the sources tapped for this reservoir, there was a huge amount of duplication. When this huge data set was finally incorporated in the FamilySearch.org Family Tree, it contained a cross-section of all possible levels of genealogical expertise. Unfortunately, despite the fact that all of the family history that was accumulated since pioneer times was included in the Family Tree, a lot of duplicate and poorly researched family history still resides in the paper and old Personal Ancestral Files that are still circulating out there among those descendants of the pioneers. When one of the recipients of this information decides to look at the Family Tree, they immediately see differences between what they have received from their traditional, hand-me-down, genealogy and what is now been put into the Family Tree. Without knowing anything at all about genealogical research, adding sources or anything else useful, they dive right in and start adding and changing what has been done now for years. Those of us, like me, who have every family line traced back to pioneers already have a massive cleanup project and that cleanup is complicated by the flow of information from the preexistent reservoir from years past. How you view family history or genealogy determines the extent of your involvement. Genealogy can be viewed as a casual pastime or hobby or it can be viewed as a complex activity requiring several professional-level skills. It is true that "everyone" can become involved in family history. Everyone can learn about their ancestors' lives and come to appreciate their ancestral heritage. But relatively few people work to acquire those professional-level skills inevitably necessary for more than casual interest. In the past, those individuals with a casual interest in genealogy and those who acquired the necessary skills to do more intensive research lived in completely different worlds. However, even highly skilled researchers did not always document their sources or provide consistent entries. Much of the professional level effort was directed at compiling articles and books about particular family lines for publication and perhaps hundreds of thousands or even more of these books have been published. For example, I probably spent the first twenty years researching my family before I had any serious interaction with a professional-level genealogical researcher. I do remember meeting one at the Salt Lake City, Utah Family History Library but that was only a casual meeting and it was the first time I had ever heard of anyone being a professional genealogist. I think the situation is pretty much the same today. The main difference is that today we have the internet and genealogy has moved from a very personal and even private persuasion to being a very public and popular activity. Although most of the people who are interested enough in genealogy to order a DNA test or start a small online family tree still have never met or worked with a professional-level genealogist, they are now thrown together in close virtual proximity online. The basic structure of the Family Tree is a wiki and that means changes will happen. Presently, I am trying to determine whether or not the idea that a wiki structured database format for the Family Tree will ultimately end up with an accurate end product. Over time, that should be the case but with the overburden of pre-existing pioneer information always out there and being passed on from generation to generation, it seems like the task of cleaning up the entries is going to require some non-wiki restrictions to keep the bad information from continually recycling. It is evident that the Family Tree is becoming more stable in parts, but there are areas where the changes are so prevalent that there is no control of the information even when well-researched, documented information is easily obtainable such as with descendants of the Mayflower and other such areas with a huge amount of activity from the reservoir of traditionally obtained information. Meanwhile, those of us with large segments of ancestral information in the Family Tree will just need to become accustomed to "correcting" the changes. I assumed that this process would slow down over time, but now, after years of working on the Family Tree, I see the same or higher levels of changes over and over again as new unsophisticated users are attracted and who have inherited their "information" from their pioneer families. There are some new tools arriving on the scene, such as the ability to synchronize a complete family tree from MyHeritage.com that give me a glimmer of hope, but for now, I will just keep plugging away at pushing back on the changes.

Understanding MyHeritage's Record Matching Technology

James Tanner posted this in his Genealogy's Star blog.

Genealogy's Star

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Understanding MyHeritage's Record Matching Technology Posted: 30 Jun 2019 06:44 AM PDT Back in June of 2012, MyHeritage.com began a revolution in the world of online genealogical database website with the introduction of SuperSearch™. The key factors in this revolution were the vast increase in the accuracy and expansion of the coverage of the searches automatically made on behalf of those users who maintained a family tree on the website. Over the years, the number of records searched, the accuracy, and the depth of the searches have continued to increase. However, the full benefit of this sophisticated technology is only available to those users who have a Premium Plus subscription to the program and also include a further data subscription. From my own experience, the benefits of these advanced tools far outweigh their cost to the user. One of the main benefits of the SuperSearch™technology is the constant searching of over 9.7 billion historical records. All of the individuals in your personal family tree matched to all of the records. If you have a large family tree, such as mine, the number of matches can easily run into the thousands as you can see from the image above showing that I have a reservoir of over 6,000 Record Matches. My experience here in the United States is that most new users almost immediately begin to get results from the Smart Matching™technology but Record Matches depend on adding enough information to a family tree to connect with the records on the website. With millions of new records being regularly added to the MyHeritage collections, over time, you should begin to see results from the Record Matches. If you are wondering what records are available on the MyHeritage.com website, you can see the entire collection in the Collections Catalog located under the Research tab on the menu bar at the top of the website's pages. When you have a family tree on the website, you will find links to each individual's Record Matches and Smart Matches in the form of icons. The little brown icons represent Record Matches and the little green icons represent Smart Matches. The icons represent the presence of Record Matches but not the total number. Here is an example of what you might see if you click on a Record Match icon. In addition to the icons on the individuals on your family tree, you can also see lists of the Smart Matches either by the sources in the record collections or by individuals. Here are images of the two options. The links to these lists are under the Discoveries tab on the menu bar. Here is a screenshot of matches by people: And here is a screenshot of matches by source: If you find a source you wish to attach to an individual in your family tree, here is the process. I found this Record Match to a newspaper account for one of my ancestors. Now I can review the match. Different parts of the screen scroll and are not adequately represented by the screenshot.  The question here is whether or not the record applies to the person listed on the left from your own family tree. In addition to the individual record match, MyHeritage.com has extended the search using the MyHeritage Record Detective technology and found 40 additional records. These additional records need to be individually evaluated. Here is a screenshot of some of these additional records. Not all of the Record Detective records pertain to the main individual. They could be anyone related to this particular individual in some way or that are mentioned in the primary record. Here is a short explanation of the Record Detective technology: Most of MyHeritage’s technologies begin with your family tree, which is the obvious starting point for finding matches relevant to your family history. But what if you have searched on SuperSearch™, and have found a record that is a good fit for one of your ancestors? In this case, your starting point is a record, not your family tree.  This is where the Record Detective™steps in. The Record Detective™ looks to see if this record is connected with any people on MyHeritage family trees and if those people have matches to other people or other records. If so, then these other records are about the same person as the record that you’re looking at now. Record Detective™ goes behind the scenes to try to find other records about the same person you’re looking at and magically delivers more relevant records to you.  All of this is done automatically with extremely high accuracy, thanks to the accuracy of the underlying Record Matching and Smart Matching™ technologies.  With the Record Detective™, records know who they are about — every record can lead to more records about the same person.   As you can probably tell from what I have already written, you could spend a considerable amount of time adding records to your family tree just from on main record search. However, you can focus on specific people rather than be driven by the matching technology. But if you are just starting out with a few people in your family tree, I suggest you may wish to keep adding records as they are found until you become interested in a specific family line or exhaust the immediate resources on the website. I should mention that as I worked on adding these sources, the number of Record Detective sources quickly rose to 88. As you proceed to add sources and individuals to your family tree, you will soon begin to realize the importance of carefully examining and evaluating those records to make sure you are accurately attaching correctly identified records to individuals in the family tree and also obtaining all of the information from the records.

FAKE DNA KITS - BUYER BEWARE

There's a new rip off  - fake  DNA kits. Spread the news. If you're going to buy a test, buy it from a known source like AncestryDNA, MyHeritage DNA, FamilyTreeDNA, 23andMe, LivingDNA, and FindMyPast DNA. 

If you want to know more contact the Better Business Bureau. You can also check out Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter.  The June 28 post includes 

Beware of the Websites Selling Fake DNA Kits

WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL ABOUT ETHNICITY?

Does ethnicity really matter? So many of us have taken one or more DNA tests. We are told about our ethnicity and possible matches with others who have taken a test. Why are we so interested in our ethnicity?

James Tanner in his blog, Genealogy's Star, posts an interesting analysis about ethnicity.

What is Ethnicity and Why Do We Care? Posted: 28 Jun 2019 01:35 AM PDT Ethnicity is the big drawing card for genealogical DNA testing. If you obtained a DNA test some time ago, you might have noticed that your "Ethnicity Estimate" has changed, possibly dramatically, since you received your first results. The superficial key here is in the term "estimate." But there is an even more serious issue with the term "ethnicity." By common definition, ethnicity is the fact or state of belonging to a social group that has a common national or cultural tradition. If you think about what this says, you realize that ethnicity has nothing to do with "race."  But the real questions for genealogists is this: how does a national or cultural tradition get passed along through your DNA? Let me give you an example. According to my extensive genealogical research over the past 37 or so years, my "ethnicity" does not exist. I do not belong to any specific social group that has a common national or cultural tradition. My "social group" consists of people from all over the world speaking dozens of different languages. Personally, I have lived in three different countries for years at a time and spoken two different languages. I cannot claim any kind of common national or cultural tradition. As I write this, I am eating flan for breakfast with jugo de naranja. I certainly do not share any cultural or national traditions with my Danish ancestors and from the movies, I have seen of England, I share hardly anything (except a form of English) with my English, Scottish, Irish, and Welch ancestors. I have more Latin-American and Spanish language traditions than either British or Danish. So when the DNA test results tell me that I am a certain percentage English or Scottish or Welsh or whatever, what does that tell me? Oh, but you say. What the DNA testing companies are really trying to tell you is where your remote ancestors came from. Surprise. I already knew all that. But telling me that I have a certain percentage of English ancestors doesn't tell me anything about their national or cultural traditions. What is a DNA test telling me or you about our ancestors? Interestingly, very little. What a DNA test does tell you is that you share certain selected DNA genetic sequences that match other people with the same DNA genetic sequences. Currently, with my DNA tests, I match up with thousands and people from all over the world. It is no surprise that the vast majority of these matches are from people in the United States. Tabulating the other matches from one DNA test shows matches from 39 different countries. How am I supposed to choose my ethnicity? Out of my thousands of ancestors who lived in the United States, what was their common social group with a national or cultural tradition? Let's start with the basics. First of all the DNA test confirmed that some of the siblings (those who have taken the same DNA test) are my siblings, i.e. we share the same parents. However, past that point, I have little to go by on most of my ancestral lines. We are presently looking at a claimed relationship to one of my remote Tanner ancestors that we cannot substantiate through genealogical research. The few cases where we can substantiate a relationship through a common ancestor are not surprising or particularly informative. But isn't this repeating my common observation that DNA only provides helpful information for some narrow situations? DNA test results can tell you a lot about the first two to four generations of your ancestors assuming some of your relatives have also taken genealogical DNA tests. But a DNA test cannot really tell you anything about your "Ethnicity" other than telling you that you may have matching, living people in a certain list of countries. In some cases, these matches may surprise you or cast doubt on family traditions, but if your family came from England or Africa or the Pacific Islands, telling you that doesn't tell you about your ethnicity, it tells you that you have DNA matches with people from those areas of the world. The number of DNA matches I have from countries around the world makes me wonder more about the reliability of the tests that it does about the results. If you take a DNA test out of curiosity then keep looking at the results as those results we continue to change. As for any genealogical value, the only way the tests will benefit you genealogically is if you take the time to enter your family tree information into a family tree associated with the DNA test.

WHAT YOU MAY NOT KNOW ABOUT THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR

Here's a post about the Revolutionary War from a post by Laurie Bradshaw on the FamilySearch Blog.

Fun facts you’ve never heard about the Revolutionary War by Laurie Bradshaw

Few events shaped the course of history so significantly as
the Revolutionary War. Colonial America’s struggle for independence affected the
country and the world in ways that can still be felt today.

Most people know the basics of the conflict; however, some Revolutionary War facts have been obscured by time. These fun facts give greater insight into the American War for Independence.

Revolutionary Technology

When you think about the Revolutionary War, technological
innovations likely aren’t the first thing that come to mind. However, it was
during the Thirteen
Colonies’ fight for independence that the world’s first
submarine attack took place.

The American Turtle, a submersible vessel shaped rather like a giant acorn, was constructed in 1775 by David Bushnell. The seven-and-a-half-foot long pod was used in a 1776 attempt to attach explosives to the hull of the British flagship Eagle, which was docked in New York Harbor.

The Turtle was successful in approaching the ship
unnoticed; however, the operator’s tools were unable to breach the ship’s layer
of iron. The bomb exploded nearby, causing no harm to its target. Subsequent
attempts had similar results.

A good first attempt—but perhaps the American revolutionaries were a bit ahead of their time.

Early Espionage

Spies were used extensively during the Revolutionary War. Some of the earliest patriot victories can be attributed to their work. The Revolutionary War’s espionage tactics were sophisticated and included invisible ink, ciphers, and code names.

Among the spy networks used, the Culper Ring was
perhaps the most elite and the most secretive. In fact, its existence wasn’t
public knowledge until the 1930s, over 150 years later. A fun fact—General
George Washington’s code name in the Culper Ring was Agent 711.

The Culper Ring supplied information on troop positions,
plans, supplies, and much more. Today, the identity of most Culper agents is
known; however, the identity of Agent 355, a
female spy in the Culper Ring, remains a mystery.

An International Conflict

It’s fairly well known that the French supported Colonial America in the Revolutionary War. In fact, the war would likely have been impossible for the United States to win without their support. The French provided the patriots with cash, weapons, ammunition, and troops.

However, it wasn’t just the French military that became
involved in the American Revolution. Spain,
a prominent French ally, and
the Netherlands, an important trading partner, also aided the Thirteen
Colonies’ fight for independence.

Diversity in the Ranks

Thousands
of African Americans participated in the Revolutionary War—on both sides of
the conflict. Many were enslaved people who were promised their freedom at the
end of the war. Inspired by the promise of liberty, African Americans enlisted
in the continental army.

These men served in the battlefield, in the navy, and in
noncombatant roles such as cooks, wagoners, and artisans. African American war
hero Agrippa
Hull was an orderly for General John Patterson and was present for the
surrender at Saratoga. He spent the remainder of the war constructing defenses
at West Point.

Colonial women were also involved in the war effort and regularly served the continental armies as cooks, nurses, and seamstresses. At times, these women were also given the opportunity to fight.

One woman, Mary Ludwig Hayes, took her husband’s place at an
artillery canon to fire at British troops during a battle at Fort Washington.
Because of her actions, she is better known as Molly Pitcher. Another woman, Anna
Maria Lane, disguised herself as a man and joined the continental army.

The Revolutionary War and You

If your ancestry traces back to Colonial America, it’s likely that this turning point in history may also be a part of your family’s legacy. FamilySearch has hundreds of thousands of records that can help you find your ancestors in the American Revolution and learn their stories.

If you know of an ancestor living in the continental United
States during the Revolutionary War, type his or her name in the search form
below. You never know what you might find!

Search Revolutionary War Records

First Name	Last Name
Place	Year

var url = base+'%2Bgivenname%3A"'+first+'"~%20%2Bsurname%3A"'+last+'"~%20%2Bany_place%3A"'+place+'"~%20%2Bany_year%3A'+year+'~&collection_id='+collections; window.open(url, '_blank'); }

HERE'S A TIMELY HINT!

We are used to seeing a lot of hints on a person page and on pedigree charts. Now there is a new location for hints - a person's timeline.

Find a person with a hint. Then open the person page and timeline. You'll see the hints there also. As Carol Lou Hill says in FamilySearch Tips and Tricks, "I just noticed that record hints show on the Timeline in FamilySearch. Does anyone attach sources from the Timeline? I really think this would help Beginners be more careful. You can see how children and events play into the whole picture. "

WHAT IF IT'S NOT STANDARD?

FamilySearch has posted an updated presentation on standardized place names.  Check it out.

I put this together in an effort to clarify what standardization means in Family Tree and how it helps us improve the accuracy of our data rather than constraining us to a limited set of "standards."

Click to open rich preview

Standardizing Dates and Places in Family Tree

Standardizing Dates and Place Names in FamilySearch Family Tree Gordon C. Collett

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1jl6M8efrGj6Xe3MP6oyYdfFMXPSPCoJuyrS5xXj7KN8/edit?usp=sharing

• Non Standard Place Names

HINTS, HINTS, ETC

If you haven't noticed yet, those pretty blue hints now appear on the person page's timeline. Check it out.

DIGITAL INFORMATION PRESERVATION - A GUIDE

James Tanner has a great series of posts on digital preservation of information in his Genealogy's Star blog. Check out the Tips and Tricks bulletin board. Or sign onto Genealogy's Star. If you do, Look for another 10-part series on The History of the Development of Genealogical DNA.

Part 1 - The Ultimate Digital Preservation Guide

Part 2 - The Cost of Physical Storage

Part 3 - The Dawn of the Digital Age

DO YOU TRACK CHANGES TO YOUR TREE?

James Tanner does and so do I. But Elder Tanner goes one step further, he has done a statistical analysis of changes to people in his tree that he is watching. The question is,  how many changes are made without a source.

In his Blog, Rejoice and be Exceeding Glad, he reports that of the 330+ people he is 'Watching' 90.2% of the changes were made without any reference to a source. WOW!

There are probably many changes that don't even have an explanation.

SUGGESTION! When making any change, Copy and Paste the name of the record used to the reason box.

FAMILYSEARCH - SIMILAR HISTORICAL RECORDS

There's a new tool in FamilySearch. It's "Similar Historical Records". Try it when searching historical records. The details from FamilySearch explain it. 

New post on FamilySearch Blog Record Searches Easier with New Tool!—Now You Can See Similar Historical Records by Sunny Morton Learning more about your ancestors’ lives often require searching for their names in historical records. This is where you might find where and when they were born, marriage and death information, and even their relatives’ names. You can search instantly among more than 7 billion names in old records with FamilySearch’s powerful Historical Records search—and now there’s an easier way to find similar historical records within your search. FamilySearch Similar Historical Records Tool Simplifies Searching A new FamilySearch tool streamlines the record searching process. It’s called Similar Historical Records, and its purpose is to help you find additional records that may belong to the same person. Here’s how it works. Let’s say I’m searching for historical records about James Ottie Riser. From his page, I click the option to search records on FamilySearch (found in the right sidebar). My search results look like this: The fourth result I found is a census record. I click on the name or the page icon to see the record details: I check the record information to see if it matches what I know about James. It does! Now I take a look at the Similar Historical Records suggestions in the bottom right corner. The new tool has found other records that appear to belong to the same person mentioned in this record. (It’s as if the Similar Historical Records tool is saying, “If you like this record, you may also like these other records.”) This helps me find out more about my ancestor with a lot less searching. As it turns out, both of the Similar Historical Records suggested do pertain to James Ottie Riser. Here’s what I saw when I clicked on the birth record: A summary of James’s tree information, for my reference. A transcript of key information from the birth record. The option to view the digitized record image. (Always do this, if you can. In this case, the image had James’s exact birth date and his parents’ names and occupations. This is more than the transcript shows!) The option to attach this record to James’s person page. I did this after confirming it belonged to him. Another set of Similar Historical Records! I repeated the process of reviewing each one carefully and attaching relevant records to James’s person page. The Similar Historical Records tool simplifies the process of searching for ancestors’ names in historical records. I found 3 new records for James without having to go back to the search results. Important Note: The Similar Historical Records tool does not replace the need for careful review to confirm whether each suggested record pertains to your ancestor. That’s still your job! Try It Yourself New records are being added all the time on FamilySearch! First, log in with your free user account at FamilySearch. Next, search for records about your ancestor, and view the search results. See whether any Similar Historical Records appear in the bottom right corner of the screen. Not every search result will suggest Similar Historical Records, but many do.

MY HOME TOWN

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION

Genealogy Tip of the Day

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The Nearest Towns? Posted: 11 Jun 2019 07:42 AM PDT Do you know the names of the five towns nearest to your ancestor’s residence? Which one had the nearest church of the correct denomination (or relatively correct denomination)?  Where would they have “done business?”  Where would they have gone to register a birth or death?  Where was the nearest newspaper?

DOES YOU SURNAME MAKE THE POPULAR LIST?

Among the various facts tabulated by the US Census is a list of the 1,000 most popular surnames. To check out all of the names go to " https://www2.census.gov/topics/genealogy/2010surnames/Names_2010Census_Top1000.xlsx."  Of the 6.3 million surnames found in the 2010 census, here are the top 15. Is your name there?

1. Smith

2. Johnson

3. Williams

4. Brown

5. Jones

6. Garcia

7. Miller

8. Davis

9. Rodriguez

10. Martinez

11. Hernandez

12. Lopez

13. Gonzalez

14. Wilson

15. Anderson

WHERE DID HE GO?

The Genealogy Tip of the Day has some good points to help find widowed men.

Genealogy Tip of the Day

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Track the Widowed Ancestors Posted: 15 May 2019 07:19 AM PDT It can be easy to lose a female ancestor after her husband dies. Sometimes she’s right there where she always was and sometimes she’s not. Failing to research the widow after her husband’s death can cause the researcher to overlook additional information and possible clues about her origins and parents. Sometimes additional children are overlooked. If you’ve lost your widowed ancestress, consider: searching marriage records to see if she remarried; looking for deeds drawn up after the husband’s death or (more likely) settlement deeds drawn up after the widow died; whether she moved in with one of her children who had left the area; looking to see if she’s buried near any of her children in cemeteries other than where the husband is buried; seeing if she applied for any military pensions based upon her husband’s service. These suggestions won’t apply to all people in all places, but they are worth considering. And, as always, learn as much as you can about the local records that were created and being kept during the time period your ancestors lived there.