NFS problems
Why not?: The wiki-ness of Family Search: "This is not news to the church – one of the key features of the nFS programming is that individuals can combine records of duplicate individuals. Yet in this wiki world, anyone can combine any nFS records without paying attention to important details.
For example, I found a parent combined into a single identity with a junior, a child with the same name as his father. I find genealogical trees that are twisted into vines so confusing it will take a thousand years just to unwind them – if it can even be done.
Someone on nFS has combined one of my family lines with a similar family that we’ve proven not to be related – yet for the eternities, it seems, we are now linked into the other family. This wiki-esque chain may result in our true ancestral line never being researched further.
nFS does contain means of disputing results, but given the sloppiness of other work submitted there, it’s unlikely many people will go through the effort of correcting this kind of error – besides, beyond the last 200 years, it’s unlikely that clarifying data will be found.
Part of the wiki-ness inaccuracy in nFS is the wide variety of naming methods used. Some users submit names with abbreviations, middle names, middle initials, and, of course, the many variant spellings of names. Each of these variants appears to be a different individual.
To complicate the matter, notes appear in name fields including information like “twin” or “Captain”. Because they are in the name fields, these appear as additional variants of the name. . . . . "
For example, I found a parent combined into a single identity with a junior, a child with the same name as his father. I find genealogical trees that are twisted into vines so confusing it will take a thousand years just to unwind them – if it can even be done.
Someone on nFS has combined one of my family lines with a similar family that we’ve proven not to be related – yet for the eternities, it seems, we are now linked into the other family. This wiki-esque chain may result in our true ancestral line never being researched further.
nFS does contain means of disputing results, but given the sloppiness of other work submitted there, it’s unlikely many people will go through the effort of correcting this kind of error – besides, beyond the last 200 years, it’s unlikely that clarifying data will be found.
Part of the wiki-ness inaccuracy in nFS is the wide variety of naming methods used. Some users submit names with abbreviations, middle names, middle initials, and, of course, the many variant spellings of names. Each of these variants appears to be a different individual.
To complicate the matter, notes appear in name fields including information like “twin” or “Captain”. Because they are in the name fields, these appear as additional variants of the name. . . . . "
posted by Hugh W at 7:21 pm
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