Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Adding GEDCOM Information to FamilySearch Family Tree - Post 2: Comparing GEDCOM Data with FamilySearch Family Tree Data

I posted Adding GEDCOM Information to FamilySearch Family Tree - Post 1: Uploading the GEDCOM File yesterday, trying to test the feature that permits person profile information to be added to the FamilySearch Family Tree from information uploaded in a GEDCOM file to the FamilySearch Genealogies site (a collection of separate family trees submitted by registered users).

In the first post, I uploaded the GEDCOM file to the Genealogies site, and was waiting for the confirmation email from FamilySearch that it had been processed.

1)  I never received a confirmation email (I even checked my spam folder), but this morning I went to the Genealogies site (https://familysearch.org/upload/treesand it told me that the "Status" of my file was "Ready" and I could "View" the imported information:



There are three actions that can be taken on the screen above - I can view the file I uploaded (blue button), I can download the file I uploaded (download icon), or I can delete the file I uploaded (trash can icon).

2)  I clicked the blue "View" button at the bottom of the screen above and saw:


The screen above shows my "Comparison Results:"

*  I have 53 "Potential Matches" (meaning that my person may match a Family Tree person, but it's only "possible")
*  I have 13 persons that I can "Add to Family Tree"
*  The Comparison matched 259 "Already in Family Tree" persons
*  There are 0 "Invalid or Living" persons in my uploaded file.

3.  I clicked on the red "Review Matches" on the screen above.  The "Compare GEDCOM with Family Tree" for "Potential Matches" shows (two screens):



On the screens above, the list of "Potential Matches" is down the left-hand side of the page.  The information for the highlighted person on the list is shown on the rest of the screen, along with the possible match person profile already in FamilySearch Family Tree.  There are two blue buttons at the top right of the screen - one for "Yes" and the other "Not a Match."

There wasn't enough information for the "possible" profile already in the Family Tree, so I expanded the "Spouse and Children" and "Parents and Siblings" as shown below (two screens, some overlap):



Based on the comparison of the available data, my judgment was that my Samuel Seaver was not a match for the "possible" Samuel Seaver profile.

4)  I went back to the top of the screen and clicked on the blue "Not A Match" button.  Nothing seemed to happen, but I noticed that the count of "Possible Matches" went down by one and the count of "Add to Family Tree" went up by one.

 clicked on the "Add to Family Tree" link in the upper left-hand corner, and this Samuel Seaver was at the top of the list:


There is a blue "Add" button at the top right-hand corner of the screen above.

5)  I wanted to "Add" Samuel Seaver, so I clicked on the blue "Add" button and saw the comparison of data between the GEDCOM file and what is now in the FamilySearch Family Tree:


  
Samuel Seaver was assigned Family Tree ID L61V-YFS.  

After completing this action, the count for "Add to Family Tree" went down one and the count for "Already in Family Tree" went up by one.

6)  I wanted to see what information was transferred to the FamilySearch Family Tree by this action.  I clicked on the light green name of Samuel Seaver on the "Compare ..." screen above, and selected the "Ancestor" to view and saw the FamilySearch Family Tree profile for Samuel Seaver (FTID L61V-YFS) (two screens shown):




It appears that only the second wife of Samuel Seaver was added (or matched?) by the process above.  The first wife, Mary Holden, is not yet in the Family Tree.  Nor are their three children. I think that I need to add them also one at a time.  It may be that the second wife, Betsey Glazier, was already in the Family Tree.  She was listed as the wife of an unknown spouse and Samuel Seaver (1772-1857) with FTID=KD3Q-ZF2.  So I made am istake in the process above - I didn't check the second "Potential Match" that I was provided - I should have and did not.   I will have to merge the two profiles from within the Family Tree.  I did that.

Samuel Seaver (the one I added) was added as a son in the FamilySearch Family Tree (to family of Samuel Seaver and Sarah Cutter).  The parents (Samuel and Sarah) were already in the Family Tree, and there are a number of siblings for him already in the Family Tree.

7)  Some conclusions from this short study:

*  It appears that this process permits the user to Add a person to the FamilySearch Family Tree. 

*  However, a user cannot add or modify the family and event data in the Family Tree.  

*  It appears that you have to add spouses and children of a person not in the Family Tree one at a time.  Unfortunately, the lists of "Potential Matches" and "Add to Family Tree" candidates are in no logical order so the user cannot tell if the spouse or children of a person you want to add are on the list without going through the entire list.  It's not clear to me what order those additions should occur. [I know, I probably should check the manual...]

My conclusion is that this may be useful to Add persons to the FamilySearch Family Tree - at least the user doesn't have to enter the names, dates and places by typing them in - but it may create more Duplicate profiles and introduce more Matching/Merging problems that need to be resolved. 

This method does not compare to the genealogy software (RootsMagic, Legacy Family Tree, Ancestral Quest) capability to add names, events, sources and images to the FamilySearch Family Tree.  

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2014/06/adding-gedcom-information-to_3.html

Copyright (c) 2014, Randall J. Seaver




1 comment:

Unknown said...

I have been successfully using the Legacy Family Tree integration for over a month now. With this I can include selected events as well as sources with a single "click".