Duplicates
I have been adding ancestors and sharing things about these ancestors and I know so many have. Thank you all for sharing your info as well as photos and documents. But there is so many duplicates on some ancestors and I know the reason for some maybe wrong parents or siblings or what have ya. I have seen so many duplicates. I been adding in on a William Polk even on Robert Bruce Polk / other spellings to this surname. But there is so much confusion because there is so many of the same ancestors on here. I share documents then the same ancestor is on here and I share there. Just so much confusion and it takes away from the right info for the ancestors. I want to be able to connect with others to solve this problem. I do know at times I also have made duplicates but only because I couldn’t find the other ancestors at first like they wouldn’t pop up to let you know that was the ancestor because of wrong info and such.
Answers
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Sometimes when a person (or even multiples) have put duplicate information, it has turned out to be beneficial. I recently had to do lineage research on a man with a common name. His family group in FamilySearch, in fact, had 2 sons listed with almost - but not quite - identical names. Apparently no one was sure which version was correct. The census records were kind of mixed up too. Believe it or not, this situation gave me all the leads necessary to discover that 2 men were born in the same town, the same year with the same name, except each had a different middle initial. All of the mixed up sources gave me what I needed as well. I was able to sort out the two men and their families.
I know many hold the school of thought that if you don't know something is correct, don't add it as a source. I do not subscribe to that philosophy. I always add sources I'm not sure are correct to my own family because someday I will have the time to sort it all out.
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Oh I agree with what your saying, and I also agree sometimes duplicates help you figure it all out, but once it is figured out I love it all linked together to narrow it all down to the right direction. I have been doing lots of work here as well as so many others have, and I am very appreciative of all that others have shared or added. I love finding the new info shared by others and their stories and thoughts. But with so many many many duplicates of one person it can get very confusing. Thank you so much for responding.
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Please understand, there should be no duplicates in Family Tree. A major part of our work here is to correctly merge every duplicate we find.
To take your example, while there should be a record for every William Polk that has ever lived, there should only be a single record apiece for each of them and you should only be attaching information to the individual William Polk it applies to.
When you find a William Polk with “wrong” parents or siblings, the first step is to research sufficiently to be sure he is not a different William Polk with his correct parents and siblings. Only after that should you make corrections and merges.
You should only have to share your document to one William Polk. Then when you find another copy of William that you are absolutely sure is the same William and not someone else you should merge the two rather than share the document again.
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Gordon Collett My example was a VERY good reason to put duplicates in a family. They may be the same, they may not, but the person entering duplicates may not have time or expertise to sort it out and is hoping someone else may be able to help. I don't see anything wrong with that. I suspect that in the case of "William Polk" names, depending on the timeframe, it would be quite a project to determine, FOR EXAMPLE, which William Polk paid tax on 2,000 acres of land, which entered the military as a private and which is mentioned in his father's will as recently deceased. If those 3 events happened 1 year apart and in similar localities, without further evidence you couldn't prove even for certain there were 2 or 3 William Polks. Some of this requires expertise to tackle, and expertise is NOT a requirement to use FamilySearch. We need to remember that.
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I was strictly answering Tljones concerns.
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Thank you both, I appreciate you both responding. I really enjoy sharing my info with proof. And for the William polk it is the same one just so many of them on here, as well as his father. Again thank you both.
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