Volunteer Groups - Entered Non-Standardized Dates and Places

2008 rj

I've observed several different types of "Volunteers Groups" making posts to my families in Family Search.

Their willingness to volunteer is much appreciated, however, I would appreciate it if they could take the time to (1) use standardized date and places. . . . and (2) not change already-standardized items. . . to non-standarized dated and places.

In my case, many of my ancestors were immigrants who came to the United States in the 1800s for religious reasons. Many of my ancestors or relatives have been in 4-generation projects, Ancestral File, Pedigree Resource File, New Family Search, Family Search, and the IGI.

I have made an effort to go thru my many relatives in FamilySearch to standardize date and places.

To my surprise, I am finding duplicate census records (or other sources) have been entered, and the (1) place names and (2) dates have become NON-standardized.

I would not have expected that I've have the need to "watch" for this to happen/correct.

I cannot possibly "watch" all the entries that I have made in FamilySearch.

Are these new entries being made via a data upload (vs one by one)?

I would very much appreciate having "new" or duplicate sources entered in standardized format (dates and places) .

Thank you.

2008 rj

If volunteer groups are uploading data, perhaps dates and place names could be standardized before uploading.

Paul W

@2008 rj

There are a number of issues that have affected place name standardization. In your examples, perhaps you could advise whether the contributor details do appear as "Volunteer Project", or similar.

Two problems many of us have experienced relate to:

(1) The "Auto-standardization" program, which has changed perfectly correct standardized names to a place totally unrelated to the place of the event.

(2) The source linking process, whereby a place name that looks perfectly fine appears as needing to be standardized once it gets across to the person page. (E.g., how a place name from a census source which appears in a perfectly correct format appears (once the source in added) in the "Other Information" section as a "Residence" that needs to be standardized - to exactly the same thing!)

lucigarn

The contributor details I’m referring to are added by "Volunteer Project,” specifically problem #2 as you have stated once the source info gets to the person page.

Julia Szent-Györgyi

@lucigarn, changes credited to "Volunteer Project" in the Family Tree are all from the "Improve Place Names" task linked from the old home page. (I'm sure it's reachable somehow from the new home page as well, but I haven't found the right magic pixel yet.) This task affects only the background ("standardized") value of placenames: the volunteer is tasked with designating the best available entry from the Places database to match the text found in the Place field of a Family Tree conclusion.

lucigarn

“This task affects only the background ("standardized") value of placenames: the volunteer is tasked with designating the best available entry from the Places database to match the text found in the Place field of a Family Tree conclusion.” I truly wish this was the case, I am continuing to find non-standardized “place names” added by Volunteer Project.

Gordon Collett

Any "volunteer group" changing or adding data to profile pages is not FamilySearch. The only Volunteer Group that is part of FamilySearch is the one mentioned that links a standard to a non-standard place name without making any change to the entered place name.

Please post some IDs with examples of what you are seeing.

There seems to be an increasing problem with users creating user names for themselves that make them sound like some type of official group. These are user names such as "Corrections Authority." I assume they do it to make others think that they have some official standing and what they do needs to be left alone by everyone else.

There are a few legitimate groups that work under a single user name, such as "BYU Center for Fam Hist Genealogy," who has posted some sources for a few of my ancestors who lived in Nauvoo, but those of pretty few in number.

Then there are the groups attaching census records. Those residences which come across unstandardized are not hurting anything and I would actually prefer that someone just attaching census sources and adding the residence just leaves that alone for me, who knows the family and what the residence really is, to fix sometime in the next ten years.