STOP 🛑 allowing Gedcoms to be uploaded to the main tree
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I totally agree with stopping Gedcom uploads. I just want to add my support.
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Thanks everyone for the discussion around Gedcom, batch processing, & mangled trees (and other topics). There are many good points and ideas to consider on both sides. I appreciate those who were able to come together on a topic of disagreement and share thoughts. That is not easy! I have removed posts that violated our code of conduct and were inappropriate. I have also closed the discussion to prevent any contention in our community. You may not believe me but I can assure you after having worked here for many years that these issues and many others weigh very heavily on the minds of FamilySearch. We do love to hear what you need and want but as you can see from this thread, everyone doesn't agree on what is best 🙂. It's a tough position to try and build something so massive and make everyone happy. We try and truly do care about your opinions! This discussion will be sent on for consideration.
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A FamilySearch has REFUSED for years to correct this GEDCOM upload problem. I might suggest contacting FS Support to ask them to reverse a particular recent GEDCOM upload.
In the meantime, I found another 'GEDCOMMESS' this morning, so I FSmailed to fellow 'followers' (for their information), and the GED uploader. I then posted to collaboration/discussion on two of the PID's involved. I also requested the person who uploaded to contact FamilySearch Support to request a reversal of the FSTree GED import.
FWIW: FS mail and discussion:
https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/LH26-TVF (& G6X3-RPY)
A GEDCOM was uploaded on 18 Mar 2022 into the Pedigree Resource File:
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/2:2:QYDF-DQ6 Â (Person Count: 4,015)
and then 'synced' into the FS Family Tree which likely changed a large amount of information with the collaborative tree. This will create the need for a potentially large amount of correction.
I am humbly asking the person who uploaded this into FSTree if they would please CONTACT FS Tech Support to ask them to REVERSE that GEDCOM entry & simply leave the information in the Pedigree Resource File where others may use it.
This has been a recurring problem for years. For example, among MANY comments, SEE:
https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/62482/gedcom-challenge-show-us-the-data/p1
(Not to be negative, BUT I sincerely doubt that these communications, requests & postings will NOT RESOLVE the GEDCOM Problem;
ONLY FamilySearch can SOLVE this PROBLEM; (SHOUTING intended)
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I favor uploading GEDCOM files to the Genealogies section only.
I know there is a compare process but I wonder how someone using the compare feature for a hypothetical person, for example,
Robert Smith b.1870; Pennsylvania can determine if:
Robert E. Smith b. Dec 17, 1869; Pennsylvania
Robert Edward Smith b. Dec, 1869, d. Feb 1925 Maryland; and
R. Edward Smith b. 1869 Pennsylvania d. 1925
is a match with one of these, or are they in fact four different people.
I could try to make this determination with considerable time and effort, and relying on places, family members and other sources. But could I do this quickly comparing two names using the batch compare process? I do not know. I would not want to make a wrong decision by pressing a button and overwriting an existing file. And if the GEDCOM files in the batch do not contain adequate source information, it would seem impossible to make a good decision. The quick and easy answer is to say they are different people.
Speed and ease of use is a good consideration in determining what functions should be automated.
But, we have a situation with a process where one person's timesaver is another person's timewaster, as they attempt to fix the duplicates or re-attach sources in the tree. And perhaps the person attempting to fix the tree is a more experienced genealogist, who would much rather be doing actual research, and whose contributions would have more overall value.
Now these folks don't HAVE to fix the tree, but as the saying goes "Garbage In, Garbage Out" and the tree will become less and less useful over time if these records are not corrected.
I realize that duplicates can be manually added to the tree as well, often because of name variations. But it is a slower and more deliberate process, and that I can live with.
I am not suggesting FamilySearch abandon the GEDCOM standard. I am only suggesting that the batch process into the main tree be restricted.
It may also be wise to restrict the access of programs such as My Heritage, RootsMagic, etc., so that records accessed through those programs can be read-only or downloaded, but NOT changed or uploaded.
In my ideal world, FamilySearch would be the place to do all your research, collaborate with others, and develop and document your family tree. The other sites/programs would be the place to transfer and preserve the "fruits of your labor". Not the other way around.
Thank you for your consideration.
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If I could, I'd give PattiG's post three thumbs up, especially the bit about her ideal world.
Determining whether two profiles match is impossible without looking at the whole picture, including all of the person's relatives, and the sources for the conclusions.
The GEDCOM upload strips the sources and notes, so that point of comparison has been lost right off the bat. This leaves us comparing relatives -- if we can. Here's what I see when I scroll down below the (mostly empty) vitals section on a "possible match" from my file:
(Ignoring the error in the labels: that second "Spouses and Children" on the left is clearly supposed to be "Parents and Siblings".)
This is clearly not a decision that can be made based on the information presented or with the tools provided. Adding the person from my file would serve zero useful purpose in cleaning up the Tree or researching the family.
I just did a bit of further testing, and yup, it happily added a nearly-identical duplicate of my grandfather's brother with a single click. (The only difference was in the labeling of his death location: my file had the Hungarian name, while Family Tree has the Slovak.) It appears that it only does the comparison once, when the file is first uploaded, and then behaves as if that were still the current state of the tree, regardless of how much later the file is looked at again. (My upload was in 2018.) This means that my file could be the source of up to 207 duplicates -- and I can find no way to get it to look again, short of uploading a fresh copy. And even knowing full well that mom's uncle does have a profile already, I could not get the compare-and-add process to show me the relevant part of the Tree. If it had been a more obscure relative, I would have had no way to figure it out.
As demonstrated, the compare-and-add process is badly flawed and should not be allowed anywhere near the Tree. Please stop the process at the upload to Genealogies. Anything further implies confidence in procedures that clearly do not work as intended.
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It was good to see that one of these (closed) topics has now been listed as "UNDER CONSIDERATION" - however . .....
I was also going to reference the 'longest discussions' on GetSat titled 'Would someone in upper FS management please explain why it is desirable or necessary to import Gedcom into FSTree' (or similar wording) but is also 'deleted, discarded & not to be found'. That was maybe 7 to 10 years ago and had tons of comments and an "explanation" Ron Tanner, Mr FSTree that it was so folks "wouldn't have to type!" I did find a reference to it with a 'bit' link (not working) in one of 'Rotkapchen's' posting a of 100's of examples of the problem.
I'll not be surprised if Brett has a copy in his extensive FS Help files.
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The GEDCOM upload Compare tool looks like a very outdated version of the current Merge. Arguably, creation of thousands of duplicates would be better than merging through this Compare tool. But even better than creating duplicates, if the tool would say Pause and use Find to check the tree for similar profiles.
The Compare tool at this point isn't even adequate to compare and reject a profile as a duplicate. So, in effect, pasting a GEDCOM into the public tree space is a largely capricious exercise. Rather few people who use it realize the scope of what they are doing, and I know a lot of users are painfully embarrassed. What I think would help is if the tool page would include text recommending that the user watch Family Tree to see what is happening.
How about imports to Family Tree by appointment only? So a volunteer experienced in merging could guide and help the contributor? I would much rather address the problem before the fact than have to fix the results later. And by watching lots of these trees coming into Family Tree we may see patterns and opportunities for leverage.
A brief tangent to make a point:
When I first came on Family Tree that Merge tool was pretty bad too. Apparently I was an early adopter merging on the mobile app. I used to have regular, lengthy communication with the engineers reporting bugs and suggesting features. In every reply to me they would paste a boilerplate paragraph about how the mobile app should not to used to edit the tree, only browse. (Really? Nah.) But for many editing tasks I prefer the mobile app. Currently it seems to have a much lower threshold for finding duplicates and is reliable enough that I use it heavily for resolving them. The duplicates are rather more hidden, though; they are not displayed together with the source hints.
My point: Tools get better when we stress test them and if lines of communication remain open. So, please, moderators do not delete or lock this discussion and commenters stay calm, respectful, non-accusatory, and argue on.
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Continuing to allow gedcom uploads into the FamilySearch Tree is a HUGE PROBLEM!!! I understand the reasoning for continuing to allow gedcom uploads, BUT to allow this in its current format is disrespectful of those who have spent years years searching for, verifying, and adding information into the tree. I find it hard to believe that in today's technological world there is still no way to solve the duplicate problem that many users have complained about for years.
Two recent gedcom uploads have added hundreds if not thousands of duplicates into my tree. It will take me months of solid work to merge these duplicates. This is especially frustrating because the vast majority of these duplicates are exact copies of what is already in the tree. How was this not caught and dealt with at the time of upload? It is also frustrating because what has been uploaded appears to have originally come from the Family Search tree - which means that information (that came from the FS Tree) is now being added back into the FS Tree as duplicates.
Why should I spend my time merging these duplicates instead of searching for and adding new persons and new information into the tree? - or processing the thousands of welcome new hints now available in the tree? Why is the gedcom uploader not required to review and merge the duplicates during the upload process? Why is there no diaglog between FS engineers/programmers and FS users about how to solve this problem? (Surely we are all on the same page with love for FamilySearch.) Why is there radio silence??
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I feel your pain. What may help is to post a table of these duplicates, as shown by pairs of PIDs: your profile and the new GEDCOM profile, so engineers can see exactly how the compare step is not working. So, don't merge, just document.
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That’s a good idea, but only if FS engineers actually read these posts. Do they? And if so then how do we know they read them? Where is their feedback?
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That’s a good idea, but only if FS engineers actually read these posts. Do they? And if so then how do we know they read them? Where is their feedback?
FamilySearch engineers do read some discussions. One function of moderators here is to escalate selected discussions to the engineering teams. To achieve escalation, as a rule it is necessary to provide screen shots and/or URLs and be able to clearly describe and reproduce the problem or at least find additional instances of it.
I have received feedback via public comments here, private messages here, emails, and one time a phone call.
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Thank you! That is good to know. I appreciate your feedback and will begin to keep a list of PIDs for obvious duplicates that are generated by gedcom uploads.
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I would like to suggest that the ability of ordinary users to upload GEDCOM files created by third-party genealogy software be completely discontinued.
Unfortunately, these uploads have the capability of creating duplicate profiles. Often, these duplicate profiles are, unfortunately, not cleaned up responsibly by the user who made the upload. This is especially a problem for profiles of people who lived long ago, since the number of descendants who can cause the problem, over and over, can be quite large.
Especially for people who lived long ago, there should be lesser need to create new profiles. It is quite likely that a profile already exists in the Family Tree.
Family Tree needs to work diligently to stop the useless creation of new, duplicate profiles. One important step would be to turn off the GEDCOM file upload feature entirely.
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Similar requests have been made over a period of many years - probably over the whole ten years since Family Tree was first released. FamilySearch employees rarely respond to issues now, but on the forum that preceded "Suggest an Idea" (GetSatisfaction) we were advised (by an employee) that statistics showed GEDCOM inputs were only one of a number of reasons for duplication of profiles - and not the most problematic.
If FamilySearch hasn't found this a serious enough issue to address by now, I'm afraid there appears to be little likelihood of your suggestion being adopted any time soon.
BTW - my personal experience has been that relatively few of the huge number of duplicates I have encountered have involved the GEDCOM factor - most relating to the transfer of IDs from the nFS program to Family Tree. However, many users do share your feelings on this matter.
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GEDCOM import needs to stop. I have seen more than one well documented family group contaminated by the import of files filled with BAD data. Please end support for GEDCOM files. They do more damage to the integrity of Family Trees and spread bad information into otherwise sound family groups. GEDCOM files allow ignorant and lazy patrons to mess up FamilySearch. Please STOP STOP STOP the use of GEDCOM files. Stopping GEDCOM file import would go a long way to improving the quality of data at FamilySearch.
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What! They are still allowing that? I made the GEDCOM mistake myself a few years ago. A nice cousin wrote to me a let me know how I had added tons of duplicates to her part of the tree. She told me about Roots Magic. If I had known about Roots Magic I would not have made the mess I did. I still run into the duplicates I made and keep merging them. Unfortunately, I probably will never be able to find and clean up the mess I made. I sure hope they quit allowing the GEDCOM imports.
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Uploading GEDCOM files into Genealogies performs a useful function. Where things go wrong is, after having uploaded the file, the person uses the Compare facility to transfer names into Family Tree, which, of course, is what most people will do. For some reason, the system is currently very poor at identifying possible duplicates leading to the problems cited. I have experimented with this in a small way and found that, after adding a person via Compare, the system immediately identifies a possible duplicate where the data is virtually identical!!
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As Graham said, the problem isn't GEDCOMs. They have their place, in Genealogies.
The problem is the compare-and-add process. It is badly flawed and leads to wholesale corruption of existing data by well-meaning but clueless users.
That said, that process is not the only culprit for wholesale bad additions to the tree. It is merely the easiest to identify, because it "signs" its additions in the Reason fields. Other processes -- such as the various third-party programs' "sync" capabilities -- are generally somewhat better at finding existing profiles (yeah, I know, damning with faint praise), but can still lead to large numbers of duplicates and other messes. They're just harder to see, because they do not have a uniform reason statement added to everything.
Unfortunately, I don't think FamilySearch will ever completely stop large-scale imports. They can't, really: there will always be people who have spent decades on their research who simply cannot conceive that in the long run, it really is faster and better to add all of that data one person at a time. Thus, there will always be a demand for an import function that avoids any semblance of redoing or retyping, no matter how unrealistic such expectations are for a communal tree.
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Like Graham and Julia say the problem isn't with the tool - at least not entirely... it's how the tool is being used.
I would agree partially with this Idea though I would definitely stay further away from terminated ...
How about this middle ground. Stop allowing imports from developed countries (well contributed countries that have/had the opportunity to contribute for the past decade +) - until the system can better identify duplicates and only allow compare/import differences (sources, memories, ...) definitely not replace an existing well-documented profile? The problem with stopping allowing imports period, full stop - is that is ignores the potential good for good imports/synching (as Julia sited) - especially/potentially from countries where there have been less imports.
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My recollection is the GEDCOM Compare does already compare only one profile at a time - I guess unless someone has automated it somewhere/somehow. Yes it has the profiles all listed and ready to compare - but the person has to go one by one. In that case they may as well use a 3rd party tree management solution with tree synch capability.
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Take a look at last years Rootstech presentation on the topic:
He indicates this can be done safely without duplication.
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In seven years of working on this site, I have yet to see evidence of a GEDCOM import that was beneficial. In the last two years, I haven't seen one that was anything less than outright destructive. The people uploading them clearly aren't going through any training or making any effort to avoid uploading duplicate families. Or they're uploading known bad information copied from Ancestry, MyHeritage, or other vectors of misinformation, so even if they are checking, they're not being flagged as duplicates on import because we've already cleaned up the mistakes here again. And it isn't well-integrated with the sourcing system at FS.
No, the database is mature enough that GEDCOM import no longer serves a useful function, especially for early American colonists. It should be stopped entirely for pre-20th C. ancestors.
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It was pointed out (by a FamilySearch employee) several years ago that GEDCOM imports only represented a fraction of the problem with added duplicates. Just think of the other possibilities, including probably the most damaging action of all: in bringing over countless thousands of duplicates from earlier FamilySearch programs, upon the introduction of Family Tree in 2012. (Most users will be only too familiar with the "ten IDs for each parent" situation, where a couple were assigned IDs based on a child's baptism event, rather than their (the parents) individual identities.
My own experience is that GEDCOM imports have had relatively little negative impact on my work (specifically in merging IDs). Merging isn't really a great problem for me (except when it involves whole families) - where as "unmerging" really is a pain.
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Ah, if someone said this several years ago, I must just be imagining the problem that exists today.
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Despite some assuming that GEDCOM uploads aren't much of a problem, that is just not true. In the past six months I have experienced two such uploads connecting to the same Revolutionary War era record. The first one was a conflation of another family and was relatively 'easy' to separate (it only took two or three hours) although I'm sure there is another duplicate descendant tree out there that someone else is having to deal with. The second GEDCOM upload happened two days ago and created THOUSANDS of duplicate records, of which many are incorrect. I spent weeks this past winter carefully combing through this entire descendant tree, attaching Source records, researching questionable relationships, and merging plenty of already-existing duplicates in certain families. And with an unwitting mouse-click, all of that work has to be done AGAIN! It will take weeks! Although I always strive to keep my communications civil I had very ugly feelings toward these users.
I now realize that the people uploading their GEDCOMS didn't have any idea what was happening. That is what is so very alarming. If enormous GEDCOM uploads continue to be allowed, the Family Tree will soon become unusable. The Family Tree is now filled out enough that GEDCOM uploads are a clear liability and should be discontinued. IF any GEDCOM uploads continue to be allowed, they should not be allowed to exceed - AT MOST - 50 records.
For starters, new users do not understand the concept of one shared, public tree because they've not experienced that anywhere else. I don't care how many times the word Shared is repeated on the FamilySearch landing page. They do not yet understand what that word means in this context. The very fact that users can so easily upload their own GEDCOM tree 'tells' them that FamilySearch works just the same as Ancestry and the other platforms with private tree space. Otherwise, their thinking goes, they wouldn't be allowed to mess things up that easily.
There's another important side to this too: when someone who has been working long and hard on their tree suddenly sees another user making a huge mess by conflating and duplicating records with apparent abandon, it has the very real potential to create some undeserved animosity via the Message channel. This gap in the FamilySearch technology is actually engendering anger and hatred because neither party understands that it's the technology that is at fault. I manage to keep a civil cap on my communications but my feelings toward these other users were very ugly until I realized where the real problem lay.
That is exactly what this uncontrolled GEDCOM upload situation is doing.
I should also point out that the Revolutionary War era person who has been the brunt of these two GEDCOM uploads also has an Alert posted on the record. When a GEDCOM is uploaded and attached to this record, it makes it seem that the person attaching the new duplicates has completely disregarded EVERYTHING other users have tried to prevent happening. Perhaps a starting point for taming GEDCOM uploads would be to make it impossible to automatically attach anything to a record with an ALERT message enabled.
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Given the age of the compare-and-add programming, I think it's highly likely that there was no sign whatsoever anywhere of any of the collaboration notes -- alerts or not -- when the uploader added his stuff. So yeah, he "completely disregarded" other users' messages -- because he wasn't aware of their existence.
That's the basic problem with the whole process: it fails to show users any of the details they need for making good decisions. Is it any wonder, then, that they make bad ones?
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GEDCOMs that are downloaded to the tree create lots of duplicate entries because there isn't a 100% match.
My experience has been that the person who downloads their tree does not fix the mess they make.
I do not understad why the download is even allowed.
Thanks
K Aasen
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I agree! Almost without exception, any name I see with "GEDCOM data" as a reason statement is a duplicate or has some other kind of error. GEDCOMs should be allowed in Genealogies, but transferring those names to Family Tree shouldn't be allowed.
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I am in full agreement with this request as well.
In my experience the persons doing these uploads have no idea of the negative impact that they are causing and we are left to clean up the mess that they have created.
They should be comparing their trees to FamilySearch and making updates to individual profiles where necessary but a mass upload should not be allowed.
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Mod note - Several requests for the discontinuation of uploading GEDCOMs have been merged here. Any reference to another discussion that was part of this merge was edited. As stated here, we are aware of and appreciate your concerns. Since so many have varying opinions, the discussion will remain closed to reduce contention. You are welcome to upvote the idea if you feel it has merit.
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