Double, duplicate records of living persons
I discovered that I have two different PIDs, as do each of my immediate family. Everything, including sources, is the same. I cannot merge the two records because I am told they (me) are in two different family trees. The family trees look the same to me. Do I now have to enter data twice for each of my family members? Since I created my own record, and I show as the creator of both, why cannot I merge these duplicate records, or duplicate records of my wife and children, that I entered? When I die, which one will be changed from living to deceased? If a child marries, which one do I update? On 2 August 2014, "FamilySearch" made changes, apparently creating duplicate records under one of my PIDs. How do I clean this up and prevent it from happening again?
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Currently, there isn't a way to sync information between private and shared living individuals. The profiles found in a Group Tree are separate from your personal living profiles for privacy reasons. However, this can make it difficult to keep information consistent between the various matching profiles. Some solutions have been suggested in this discussion:
However, I have no idea how soon something like this would be added. Hopefully something is in the making.
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Just to clarify why you are seeing what you have discovered. The entire Family Tree database does contain different types of internal spaces which are isolated from each other. There is the deceased individual space that all users can access. There are our individual spaces that contain the living Family Tree profiles that we enter under our own account that only that account holder can see. There are the family group spaces that contain all the living Family Tree profiles in a family group and which all group members can see.
When a family group is created, profiles are copied into the group which creates a new, duplicate profile for group members to work with. This allows a user to keep his or her own private copy which can contain information that the user does not want to share with the other group members.
Profiles in one isolated space cannot be merged with profiles in a different isolated space.
When you die, all copies of your profile such as the one in your private space, the one in your family group space, the ones in the family group spaces created by others that you do not belong to, the one in your spouse's private space, the ones in your children's private spaces, the ones in all your aunts, uncles, and cousins private spaces, and the ones in your grandchildren's private spaces will all need to be marked as deceased which moves them to the Family Tree deceased individual space where, since they are then now in the same space, those dozen or so duplicates can be merged.
Each user that has a profile for you will need to personally mark you as deceased. Any member of a family group can mark you as deceased there. Only a FamilySearch administrator can mark the copy of your profile in your account as deceased since no one else can access your account and you cannot mark yourself as deceased.
Regarding which profiles for family members to view as the primary profile and which to work with is a bit of a decision for each user right now. For a new users to Family Tree, they have the option of never having more than their name in their personal private space and instead immediately creating a new or joining an existing family group and only working in the family group space.
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Gordon Collett has explained the duplication issue quite well. To read the official statement and explanation see: Duplicates and Family Group Trees
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The background to the duplicates decision remains somewhat of a mystery to me. I understand this is to protect the private version of yourself in the Family Search Tree - which I presume no-one will be able to access when you die. What is the value of such a level of privacy at the expense of duplication?
My 2c (belatedly). Family Search should be easy to follow. It's one tree foundation is fabulous and is why I have committed hugely to developing part of that tree. But suddenly we have no choice, if we wish to participate in groups, but to produce multiple versions of ourselves and our close family (eg I could, in time, be a member of a group that contains my cousins on my fathers side, and other on my mother's side. Both of these groups will contain living people for my 5 siblings, their partners, 15 nephews and nieces their partners, current 25 great-nephews and nieces (and partners not far away). These two simple groups of cousins result in was more than 50 duplications that need to be maintained.
I have a background in software development and management of large complex software systems so hopefully that experience is relevant. It seems to me that the priority here is convoluted. If there was just ONE copy of me in the first place, no matter which group I am in, and ONE copy of my close family members, whichever groups they appear in, the Family Group Trees would function much more like the public tree, and much simpler for extended family members (who aren't genealogists) to participate in.
I know this development is a long way down the track, but my instinct is that this track is too complex for many potential users. Bad enough to allow, indeed encourage duplicates, but then to add complex synching options seems to go further and further down a messy path. …. CONT in next comment
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CONT… Forgive me if this has been fully canvassed elsewhere and I haven't found it, but, for your feedback, here's how I imagine it would have worked and would be interested in feedback as to why it can't - or won't. I have my living profile in my private space on the Family Group Tree.
When I join a Family Group Tree I share my living profile with that Group so they see the same profile that I have created for myself. This profile is then shared in much the same way as a memory which can be available in multiple Groups.
When I add a living person to the FGT and invite them to join the Group, accepting that invitation allows them to choose whether to keep their version of themself (as in the private record in the FS Tree) or the version I have created in the group. The other 'interim' record would be deleted (or merged). The more people that participate in the group, the less duplication there will be.
I can then join several groups with some confidence there is only one 'official' version of me that is available to all group participants. When I die (and I will), that version of me should have some form of 'priority' over random versions of me created in other people's private spaces. While I'm alive, some extra security may be needed to avoid others corrupting my profile, although this seems at odds with the fact that anyone can corrupt all my deceased relatives at the moment (and recently did) and they don't even have to be trusted group members!
When I add a living person to the FGT that doesn't have a FS account (eg children), I would want to add that same profile to appear in a number of nominated groups (eg they appear in the FGT for my paternal rellies and the FGT for my maternal rellies but not in the FGT for my partner's rellies). Update that profile once and it will be updated in all relevant trees. Makes sense to me :-) So…. what am I missing here? Why has so much focus been put onto the privacy within personal or group spaces over the inevitable duplication and complexity that this form of sharing seems to require.
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Is there anywhere that summarises the reasons why there is a need for duplicates? Here are a few I've picked up from reading more widely:
- Living people in different private spaces cannot be merged according to current FamilySearch policy which has to follow the privacy laws of every country it can be accessed in.
- Then there is the issue of what happens if I get kicked out of group I am in. If I don't have my own copy of a living profile, I've lost it all together.
- Obviously, a single profile shared across multiple groups is not a possibility, because it would show evidence of work by people who are not in the particular group that you are in.
Any others to add to the list?
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I don't have anything to add to the list but just though I would mention that when something really doesn't seem to make sense, it often means there are a lot of lawyers involved. This article might give some insight as to why it took FamilySearch about ten years to develop and release the family group feature and why it is structured the way it is:
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@MarlenePitman One additional point is that there might be data that you want shared in some places, but not in others. If you have a single shared profile, that would not be possible.
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Hello @Gordon Collett - very helpful insights, much appreciated.
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Hi @AnneLoForteWillson Thanks for the extra feedback. I would see that more of a side-benefit than a driver of this design.
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