Is the user "TreeBuilding Project" taking the tree forward or wasting time?
![Adrian Bruce1](https://us.v-cdn.net/6032564/uploads/defaultavatar/nV1A3AXEPLQA3.jpg)
Today user "TreeBuilding Project" added a source record index https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:6KWF-ZSBL (which is from the "United States, Social Security Numerical Identification Files (NUMIDENT), 1936-2007") to profile GFS1-ZS6, Amelia Matthews.
Now, this is actually quite an interesting index record - it implies Amelia married 4 times (to Messrs Osborn, Leonard, Ness and Empson). Her profile already has the marriage to Roy Ness - but also a marriage to Glen Wrighter Harbaugh. So that's potentially 5 marriages implied by the existing profile and the newly attached source index.
And what has user "TreeBuilding Project" done with this (genuinely) intriguing information? For Amelia's own profile, they've added a dated custom event "SocialProgramApplication", an undated custom fact "Social Program Correspondence", a custom fact "Race" (value white) and an undated Custom Event "PreviousResidence" of "Seattle, King, Washington, United States".
They have ignored her death date of June 1994 which is there on the record.
They have done nothing with the newly implied spouses - although that could be a tangle.
They have created 2 custom events/facts ("SocialProgramApplication", and "Social Program Correspondence") that I would regard as genealogically irrelevant. (The source record created by the events isn't irrelevant - just the events.)
They've created an undated Custom Event "PreviousResidence" of "Seattle, King, Washington, United States" when the correct input should have been an undated (standard) Event of type "Residence" of "Seattle, King, Washington, United States". (This mistake I find appalling - creating a Custom Event instead of a Standard event is nonsensical).
I asked whether "TreeBuilding Project" is taking the tree forward or wasting time?
- The Custom Event "PreviousResidence" needs to be corrected to a standard "Residence", so that's wasting time for the people coming after.
- The creation of genealogically irrelevant events wasted the time of "TreeBuilding Project" (assuming it is a real person, which I beg leave to doubt).
- One big problem is that the death date has been ignored - since the source index containing the date of death has already been attached, what - if anything - will prompt a careful researcher to find that date? Potentially nothing - so more wasted time.
Then there are the implied husbands that have been ignored - to be honest, that could be a complex story and I would advocate leaving that to one side awaiting serious research into that family. Nonetheless, what will prompt such a person to look at the NUMIDENT source again? Has the opportunity for such a prompt been lost? I'd have added something to the Collaborate tab along the lines of "Apparently also married to …."
Answers
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"TreeBuilding Project" has been attaching MANY NUMIDENT sources. I see his/her work almost daily in profiles on my following list.
It seems that this user may be part of a group of users we have discussed a few times who are, apparently, focused on the NUMIDENT record set. Since NUMIDENT is a US-centric record set, it's interesting that many users in group have names that appear to be from another country.
I've even wondered if "TreeBuilding Project" may have multiple users because I've seen so much activity by that username.
Some relevant threads:
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Thanks Adrian Bruce for you comments.
I call if "robotic genealogy" which results in "junk genealogy" which is less than desirable, in my opinion. I might add that this is "propagated" by the way the software has been implemented, especially in the Source Linker where it either defaults or "encourages" robotic behavior. Your examples are noteworthy. Another couple of examples are Custom Events such as "Residence 1949 United States" from the 1950 Census, "Residence 1935 Same Place" from the 1940 Census or "Membership" or "Residence 1940 World" in connection with the LDS Worldwide Census. By the way, I totally agree about your comments about Custom Events for Social Program entries from NUMIDENT sources. I don't believe it is genealogically significant to know when someone applied for Social Security or made a Social Security Claim. Another consideration is the fact that Family Tree uses Custom Events in "computer generated" life sketches in the About page. I recently learned that my relative served in the "Northern Sudan Mission" in 1903 (in fact was the Northern States Mission but the place in the Custom Events had not been standardized). So one thing leads to another and sometimes the end result is less than desirable. Also, someone recently made a comment how people are "copy/paste" life sketch information into other websites, which I have also witnessed.
Sorry for the rant, just my thoughts. Even though I believe the Family Tree is an amazing tool, I wish the program managers and engineers were more open to "honest dialogue".
DL Melville
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I don't believe it is genealogically significant to know when someone
applied for Social Security or made a Social Security Claim.I have to disagree with that statement. Knowing when someone applied, especially in the earlier years of the Social Security program, can give us good intel about when someone started working. Especially for women, that can be important to that person's history. And when the claim was made can also be significant, if it's long before or after standard retirement age.
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I think that my opinion about the relevance of the applications is that the application event itself is irrelevant in a genealogical sense - but the generated source record can be immensely valuable for its implications.
Indeed, I am beginning to suspect that these NUMIDENT files were deemed by the whatever it is project, to be simple attachment jobs - whereas the implications of the recorded events are actually the exact opposite of simple attachments. They have, I think, all sorts of complex implications that can't be confirmed without a lot more work (such as several potential husbands). Not at all easy to do a complete job on the file.
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I suppose, in the collaborative environment of the FSFT, one user/group attaching the basic record, while leaving the details to someone with more time or experience, may not be all bad. BUT, I worry that we'll see more bad choices/attachments when the project/user takes a simplistic view of same-name records, as in that O'Connor family in my earlier thread.
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It should be pointed out that it's not the user making the choice about custom versus standard event: Source Linker takes it upon itself to make those decisions, and users cannot change it. They can only choose whether to add the conclusion or not.
In fact, about 90% of the complaint should be addressed to the Source Linker programmers (and/or whoever's in charge of the interface between NUMIDENT and Source Linker, or between indexed collections in general and Source Linker). The user is just blindly clicking through, accepting everything that Source Linker offers — which is a problem, but a well-known and highly-predictable one that the programmers should be designing their tool around, rather than exacerbating with dubious-value conclusions.
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@Julia Szent-Györgyi - rightly or wrongly I have attempted to raise this in the New Source Linker Feedback group.
(I failed totally to link the new thread to this thread as a whole - the Community software insists that I really want to link to the last comment in the thread, not the thread as a whole. How stupid of me to want to link to the wrong thing… Sarcasm off.)
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If "Tree Building Project" is a FamilySearch backed group of volunteers and not just a user with a deceiving user name, then part of the trouble with deciding whether the project is an advance or a detriment will be due to the fact that the vast majority of the volunteers might do excellent work while a couple of them are disastrous, just like with indexing.
If this is a FamilySearch effort, I would wish for a couple of things:
- A link to project instructions so we could know what the volunteers are supposed to be doing.
- That FamilySearch keeps track of what each individual volunteer does.
- The ability to message the project supervisors regarding any individual source attachment so that if there were glaring problems, they can go back to the volunteer that messed up and either give that person more training or, if a recurring problem, give that person a different assignment.
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I did a quick Google search on Tree Building Project and found this:
https://www.familysearch.org/en/fieldops/roc/vroc-projects-building-the-family-tree1 -
So it is a FamilySearch project. But it appears that no information about it is accessible to users of Family Tree and no feedback button is available for users to express concerns about what effects the project in having on their relatives' profiles in Family Tree. In particular whether or not a particular volunteer is actually following the project instructions.
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