Family Tree is so complex. Can we make it easier?

LegacyUser

Gail Ann Hellings said: I love the Tree in FamilySearch. I've used it since it began but boy oh boy it is complicated!

Is there a way to make the tree simpler to use? Any ideas anyone?

Whenever there is a second or third set of parents, the merging process becomes very tricky.
Sorting out families that have been messed up is complicated.

I'm not a novice but even for me it taxes me to the limit. Sometimes I have to walk away and leave some problems that defeat me.

When helping new beginners to FamilyTree, who have a "full tree" put there by an earlier generation, it is impossible to make it simple for them.

FamilySearch create duplicate parents whenever they add a new child christening. Can it be done some other way?

FamilySearch seems to create duplicate records when they add a new hint and create a new person using that hint. In those cases, I find when opening the hint in a person's page that it's already been attached to someone else and the record it completely empty apart from one name and the source.
Let's find a way of improving that at least.

LegacyUser

Ben Strubl said: What time period. If before 1830 it's a common problem and may require doing some old time research.

LegacyUser

Ben Strubl said: Gail
Maybe some such as myself or Doug might be able to assist if there was a PID and other information to be able to assist in your question.

LegacyUser

Gail Ann Hellings said: Thanks for all your suggestions. I use the same merging sequences you mentioned. It took a lot of reading so next time go back and edit it and break it into a lot more paragraphs to make it easier to digest.

Yes perhaps the multiple parents have been generated from the earlier extraction program. I hope that's the case.

I'm putting my opinion out there in case the creators of Family Tree don't realize how complicated it is. Way beyond the capabilities of some.

I'm hopeful that a few clever people can come up with a simpler way to work in Tree and achieve the same final result.

LegacyUser

Gail Ann Hellings said: Thank you Ben. I am really touched by your offer of help. I might need it sometime.

My main reason for putting my opinion out there is to get people thinking of ways that will make FamilyTree a more workable program. If that happens, more people will use it.

Family History research is one thing then add Family Tree into the mix and it's a whole new ball game.

LegacyUser

Ben Strubl said: Hi Gail
I really try to accomplish the same. I've have many Brit friends who are surprised that knows more English history than they do. But yet the British Isles have had so many Conquers than William 1st. The Roman Emperor Claudious,. After Rome left Britannia some leaders invited Germanic Angels, Goths, and Saxons mercenaries for protection. But like the the later Scandinavians who must have thought this is a better place as we came from and encourage more to follow. I've seen the same with my 5th great grandfather about America in the early 1700's and family members followed(labeled Palatines)
Right or wrong in a suggestion I may give you I'm always open if you need advice.

LegacyUser

Douglas Francis Lescoe said: I am trying to be polite:
1) The people who do the coding (if that is the correct term) for computer programs are, in my opinion, really talented in that field. I could never do what they do or certainly not very efficiently. They have always been polite and courteous when I talk to or complain to them. They are good people.

2) Nobody is an expert in every field - especially when doing jobs that may require using both the right and left sides of the brains.

3) i have a Business Administration degree in Marketing. Marketing Departments use focus groups to understand how people think and what they expect. It is almost a study in trivia. When I was in school, the professor said that these studies even determine how to arrange the fruit in a bowl of cereal and how the milk should splash for the best effect for the picture on a box of cereal. They also determine what is the best wording to use so it is very clear and a potential customer can quickly be convinced to buy their product. Remember , from the time that a kid in the grocery cart sees the box of cereal, to the time that the parent either is convinced or is not convinced to buy the cereal is probably well under 30 seconds.
The Marketing people know how to make things quickly and easily understood. They, with the help of focus groups, could determine what is the best wording for pages we use on this web site. They could tell us how to make things clearly understood, easy to maneuver, and simple to use. The bottom line is- have Marketing determining how the UI should be.

4) I tend to use logic when analyzing things including using this web site. As soon as it begins to feel more like a guessing game and not something I can do using logic, I want to, and often do quit.

5) I am using this site, sometimes with great frustration, only because the Church has asked us to do Family History.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: For many people, The Family History Guide (http://thefhguide.com/) is an approved training guide. I am suggesting this because sometimes reviewing the basics is something we all need, even me with over 50 years of experience researching my Family Lines.

FamilySearch is still unfinished and as such, new features are being introduced and older processes are being revamped. Sometimes this can result in new processes that we are not accustomed to seeing.

There are many areas still in need of improvement and I am continually amazed at how much the site has matured just in the past two to three years.

Some changes have been good and some haven't.

If anyone is feeling frustrated with a particular process, they need to open a new thread for each process they find frustrating and illustrate their frustration with descriptions of what they are doing and more importantly, what they expect to see as a result of what they did.

A significant number of us are contributors to this forum and sometimes can explain what is going on. We can also report on whether or not we have the same frustration and in many cases, provide work-arounds while the developers fix the issues being reported or improve the process.