Family Search Reservations should never have duplicate IDs

David Nishimoto

Family Search Reservations needs to filter out duplicate ID. It is annoying to find a duplicate id for temple work completed. I am spending hours tracing out duplicates accross multiple lines. there is the possibility of inter family marriage causing duplication of work

Alan E. Brown

I'm not sure what you mean by "duplicate ID." FamilySearch already prohibits multiple reservations for the exact same Person ID, since that would be the same person.

If you are hoping that FamilySearch would prevent reservations for the same person, who might currently have two different IDs, then that is a trickier issue. The system does indeed try to detect duplicates, and sometimes warns of the possible duplicate. Reservations will even be prohibited if it seems to be a certain match.

But duplicate checking can be a blessing or a curse. No check for duplicates can be perfect. If the system is too aggressive in its duplicate checking, then for example it may incorrectly identify twins with similar names as duplicates. But if the system is too cautious, it may fail to flag actual duplicates. There will always need to be some human judgment in determining if two people are actually duplicates.