infants are unwittingly being kept from getting their work done

LegacyUser

R Greg Leininger said: I have found over 800 names to submit to FS for temple work. I have found an interesting recurring problem that I thought I would ask you about: I often come across an infant name where they died before 8 years of age, yet their work has not been done and they have an "orange icon" flagged on their work to be done. When I look for the reason, the FS note says that they have an invalid character or name,. For that reason, they have the orange icon and cannot be claimed to get their work done.

Almost all of the time these people have the word "infant", "Mr.", "Mister", or "son" in the GIVEN NAME box. The Last Name or Surname box has the correct surname listed. As I research these people, I can tell that they have valid sources documenting their DOB, birth location and parents. Yet their work cannot get done, until someone comes along and DELETES the given name of "Mr, Mister, son, infant son, etc".

Once I delete the word "infant" (or Mr or Mister or son) from the Given Name box, the icon changes from Orange to Green, indicating that NOW their names can be claimed to do their temple work.

I wonder how many poor little souls are in the FS system just waiting to get their work done, but are being held back by this simple glitch. Isn't there some way to fix this "block" on getting cleared for their work to get done?

LegacyUser

Shanna Jones said: Just edit the given name and delete the word infant, Mr, Mister, son, and so forth. The proper way to enter infants who were unnamed is to just leave it blank. Once the temple prints the cards it automatically adds what is needed.

Click Help for the Help Center and use the search word unnamed and there are some articles that will give you the complete instructions. Then the infants will be able to get the SP.

LegacyUser

D. Llewelyn said: You can list a last name only and it allows the ordinances to be done. Just leave the first name blank.

LegacyUser

Gordon Collett said: Greg, as far as your question as to "isn't there some way to fix this 'block.'"?, like any other temple submissions, these names are to be submitted by relatives one at a time. Preferably after making sure all the information is correct and sourced as far as possible. This work by a living relative, such as yourself, includes making sure dates and places are correct, family relationships are correct and that the person's information qualifies for submission. Fixing the name so it is in accord with submission rules is just one part of this.

This is a one by one work. So just continue what you are doing. We are the fix for the block for our relatives.

There are other things that will also give this error of invalid character or name. The help center includes this on an article about entering names:

Avoid invalid words and characters
Avoid the following in name fields:
Names with initials only.
Special characters, extra spaces, and most punctuation marks. Hyphens and apostrophes are okay if they are a part of the actual name. Generation numbers, such as Steven Smith III, are acceptable in the suffix field.
Avoid repeating a special character, such as two apostrophes in a row.
Words that are not really names, such as “not named,” “unnamed,” “Mister,” “Wife,” "twin," or "Son."

These will all give the same orange icon.

LegacyUser

Jordi Kloosterboer said: I thought there used to be a data problem that came with it but it does not appear so now. They should put it down as a data problem.

LegacyUser

R Greg Leininger said: Thanks everyone for your responses. You and I all understand this problem and know how to deal with it on a case by case basis. I submitted it here for the software engineers to look at any possible "fix."

My point is that even if you and I all know how to submit names correctly, lots of patrons don't. Or some names might have been submitted decades ago, and that patron was unaware of this problem.

So right now there are probably 1000's of infants waiting to be claimed but they are in the "ORANGE zone," and won't be claimable until someone comes along and deletes the "infant son, Mr , Mister" etc, to get their name changed to GREEN.

It would be nice if a software patch could be made, so that if anyone ever puts "infant son Williams," that the whole system will leave that name as GREEN, and let someone claim it (and correct it as well, if they know to do that), thus speeding up a lot of names that may have been sitting in the Orange Zone for years unclaimed.

The patch should also "look back" and change all previously submitted (incorrectly) names like this from Orange to Green.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: There are a significant number of users who are not regular users. Back in the days of the 8-1/2 x 14 family group sheets, the name by itself was discouraged. With the computer era, a lot of what we did on those old group sheets no longer applied.

Most of us are creatures of habit. If something new comes along, we either ignore it or complain about it. In this case, members who sometimes engage in Family History work often do not take the time to become familiar with the standards that have been established. They ignore the Tips icon (I know I do) and just go ahead with what they think is the correct way to enter the information.

I don't know how many times I have removed the suffix Sr from the Vitals name fields. Maybe it would help if the word "Name" was changed to "Birth Name", but then, incomplete birth certificates (no given name given because the couple could not or did not provide a given name at the time of birth) become a problem.

The key in all of this is to communicate if the entry is recent, but if it is over a year old, then it is entirely possible that the user will not see the message until they've forgotten about what they entered.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: I guess what I'm saying is, yes, it is a problem, but I cannot think of any way to resolve the issue.

LegacyUser

Lynne Stanley said: Invalid characters are also found in other records besides infants. Lots of individuals have errors that need fixing. Fortunately, It is an easy fix with an edit to the name fields.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: I suspect, but do not know for sure, that in many of those cases, these are records that were imported from a previous system, like nFS -or- were entered before some of the "safeties" were put in place in FamilySearch.

I've found that as time progresses, more and more "safeties" are being built into the system. Some of these aren't flagged at the time of the entry (they should be), but at least the flag is raised soon after the errant entry is made.

But I also suspect (and don't really know) that those who produce the errant entry are not paying attention to what is happening.

A few months ago, I discovered that I could enter a deceased person as living via the GEDCOM ingest from a file into the massive tree. In the course of the discussion with others, I found the same thing to be true when I used Ancestral Quest. In other words, the errant entry was not blocked because the value in the death field wasn't a date, but a word in the date field.

Ancestral Quest did a lot of immediate complaining, but in the case of GEDCOM files, the upload process does not pay attention to what is in a date field. If it is a date, it remains being a text entry, where as most software converts the date to a numerical value that represents the date. FamilySearch can handle these and properly converts them for the tree (whatever the entry in a date field looks like at the database level).

But in order for me to test Ancestral Quest, I had to ignore the complaining notices when I entered the information. Once I had the errant entry in the date field, the system transferred the same way that the GEDCOM upload did -- with a text value in the date field and because of that, the system saw that as a valid entry of a death date (never mind that it wasn't a valid date entry).

FS is very forgiving of date entries and accepts a wide variety of information, including text (about, after, before, from (date) to (date). That is necessary to a point. For more information and the discussion where I discovered the living person being entered as deceased and corresponding (and informative) responses, see the https://getsatisfaction.com/familysea... discussion. No need to add to the discussion -- I think all the bases were covered by the time we were all finished.