You can use an Iron Foundry as a focus for research and filling out the FamilyTree?
So, allow me to set the stage. I spend a lot of time on FS, and find much enjoyment linking sources, reviewing said sources and adding people and extending the FT with secondary people and relationships that can be gleaned from the sources beyond the primary Indexed person. I have worked extensively up the expanding branches of my own tree; then turned back around and followed decendency back to current day for all of those lines as well.
My background outside of FS is that of being a second generation Iron Foundry owner operator. When my dad started the foundry from scratch in 1971, it was not 3 years later in 1974 that he bought out a foundry in Spokane Wash. - Union Iron Works - that had been shut down. This was the first of many that we bought out or were otherwise linked to over the years.
Union Iron Works was founded (that's a pun, get it 
)back in 1889 and was preeminent in Spokane for very many decades. What I've taken to doing is looking back for articles on Newspapers.com to track down the principals of these and other foundries to create or flesh out the principals here on the FT.
Anyways… Many indexed sources include indexing of non-humans, and often business'
Taking advantage of this quirk in the system, I have created a non-person entry in FS.
(NOTE, this is not recommended, nor common practice.)
This started out with 85+ suggested sources!! Wanting to take care of my fellow foundrymen, I'll then use these WW2 draft registration sources to identify, find/create the real people in the FT.
(note business is maintained w/o male or female so it cannot go further.)
From the first pix above, note John Carl was not previously linked. We got to find him; and the quest is on! Using Find in FS:
From the Draft Registration, we have his full name, birthdate & location, current location in 1940-1945, and more often than not a spouse or parent relative. John Carl was not previously linked, but what did we find?
About 80% of the time these people are already linked or are already in the FT in various stages of details. Now we can go and link this record and others, as well as fill out the family and complete the vitals and grow the tree!
What are you doing to Get Involved? 😄
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@Jack Hern Wow! You have done a lot of work on this! Actually, I think you are on to something larger than you think. I doubt that the systems of FamilySearch were designed to be used as this. What you have could be be a world-wide research idea. There are presently groups for iron workers, black smiths, coal miners, and many other trades and unions in existence, I doubt that anyone else has thought of using other documents, like draft cards, that hold more personal information. With the new technology, searches could be done to pull out trades, skills, hobbies and more from existing researched materials. FamilySearch has added several search methods the last 2 years. Adding your idea could be another. You might consider suggesting your idea to them through the Suggest an Idea area above-right.
FS was designed for searchers to find "real" deceased individuals with sources to support that person's history. I have searched many groups that offer lists of people who were part of that organization's history. Many were unions or fraternal organizations in small towns. Searching is hard enough with real people. What you have, could become a huge treasure for genealogists world-wide outside of a tree.
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@Jack Hern I think it is great that you are searching for the names on the Draft Registrations attached to Union Iron Works and linking the sources to the people on the records. As I thought about your activity, I had some concerns I'd like you to consider. If you look at the "Find a Person" screenshot you shared, it says that FamilySearch is "A Family Tree for the Human Family." I noticed that you are a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, so you have some understanding of the sacred ordinance work we do for our deceased ancestors. What if someone assigned a gender to your fictitious name of a person you have created? This could easily be done because it is a worldwide organization offering genealogical records, education, and software all over the world. What I mean by saying that, there might be many other language speakers looking at the record, trying to prepare this person for ordinance work. They might think that Union Iron Works is a real person's name, see a gender on the record, and then your fictitious name has a gender, wasting precious time on ordinance work for Union Iron Works. There might be a better platform for you to search for Iron Foundries.
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@dancingintherain You are correct in the potential for erroneous work. Please note my big bold: (NOTE, this is not recommended, nor common practice.)
- note that FS Indexing (by human or machine) routinely pulls out / indexes not human names
- by indexing a name, this creates the initial and big incentive for a less experienced Source Linker patron to create a new entry in FS.
- as noted in my narrative, I specifically leave the sex unknown so that it does not accidentally become taken over to the Temple side of things.
- Getting the Union Iron Works entry to the Temple would require several deliberate steps to get the record corrected and shared to the Temple - This would be on the patron making such a change.
- Lastly, a general FS patron will not come across Union Iron Works, without deliberately searching for it. — There are no Family connections coming up from Grandpa John Doe, or down from Charlamagne. It is truly a free floating artifact in the FS system, linked only by the source records attached.
@IrvS Thank you. This brings together my love for Foundry work, FS Genealogy, and serving in and providing for the Temple. That and loving the OCD quest to track down these people and flesh out their lives and details that I share a common bond with, beyond just my family blood lines. Actually, doing so much work on the FamilyTree, it allows the system to find links to a majority of the folks, albeit distantly - they end up being related as well.
What's cool here, is that there are patterns used in our foundry Hern Iron Works, that these people I've now identified from the 1940-1945 draft registrations, likely created and used in their work at UIW prior to our buyout in 1974.
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I might make a suggestion that you keep this as a living person that only you see. You might also make it as a private tree. Then no one is likely to make a mistake. It would be available for your own private research. I would think you should make a large note on the profile page stating this is not a person.
I am not sure whether this appropriate or not but I appreciate your love and concern for those people involved.
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@jamiehadlock — Now that's a great idea! I'm gonna do that right now.
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I would also add that I think you have a great idea…….but I do worry about the fact that FamilySearch was not designed to do this. Of course the focus of FamilySearch should always be on connecting families and accomplishing ordinance work for deceased individuals. One other small suggestion might be that you collect as much information as you can, and then take down the page for Union Iron Works. Once you have your information, I feel that there should be another platform in which to save and share all of the wonderful things you find! Good luck with your research.
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@Jack Hern I am not sure what the rules are in FamilySearch for this sort of thing. My gut feeling was that this could be a possible problem in some ways. But I think you ought to take the suggestion by @IrvS and send in an idea to Family Search because I can see that this could be a very useful tool for so many. The FamilySearch engineers may be able to provide better answers than I can.
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