Attention All Users: The New Merge Process is Live in Beta.FamilySearch.org

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Gordon Collett said: Typically after a new feature or new update is released in Family Tree, there are multiple posts with complaints and suggestions. Many of them include a comment such as a fairly strident "why didn't you tell us this was happening!"

Here is our chance to comment ahead of time. A major change to the merge process is functional at:
https://beta.familysearch.org/en/

One very nice change is that now all parents are brought over by default, just like sources, decreasing the chance of accidentally losing family relationships.

One thing that is going to throw people for a while is that now the person and information to be merged in is on the left instead of the right so it looks more like the Source linker and information moves the same direction as in the Source Linker.

Remember that all changes in the beta system are discarded and have no effect in the real Family Tree so you can play around and do everything as wrong as possible. So get to work, evaluate this major improvement, and add your comments here.

One comment from Paul in another topic was "One minor criticism here - again FamilySearch chooses to call everybody concerned our "ancestor". Comparatively few of the individuals we deal with are likely to be ancestors - most are relatives, albeit some quite distant ones. The word "ancestor" has been dropped / replaced elsewhere, so hopefully it will be changed to "relative" before this new feature reaches the production version of FT."



It can be the case quite often, actually, that the original person is not even a relative. So maybe it should just say "Starting Individual" or "Original Individual" or "Your Person."

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Bosch said: I would like a message like "Are you sure? They were from places one hundred km far and due to the mobility of that time it is unlikely they were the same person."

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Gordon Collett said: In Ron's Q&A he mentioned that since most people through history never went more than two or three miles from their birth place, that that sort of warning will be included at some point.

Here is his discussion of this new merge process. It starts at about 16:14.
https://www.facebook.com/familyhistor...

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Juli said: As pointed out elsewhere, they're misusing "ancestor", again. It especially bugs me when I'm working on a child who died, who is obviously nobody's ancestor, and it's also annoying when I'm working on my husband's lines -- which is at least 50% of the time, really.

"Starting person" or "original person" might be better labels, but actually I'd prefer a sort of summary card here, with the explanation about delete/save below the names and dates (screenshot from a text editor, because GetSat eats whitespace and formatting for breakfast):
(Things in square brackets are buttons/links, i.e. clicking on the name or PID should open the profile in a new tab.)

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Adrian Bruce said: There is much to like about the new process, including the one-step at a time work flow. Re labels and what not. At the moment we have, on the left:
"Possible Duplicate
Information in this column will be deleted at the end of the merge."

And on the right:
"Your Ancestor
Information in this column will be saved at the end of the merge."

1. Yes, I don't like "Your Ancestor" either because (a) it might only be a relative (b) it might not even be that and (c) if it is my ancestor then it's actually my ancestor on both sides!

On that basis, I think I prefer "Original Person" - or "Starting Person" might be better. "Starting" does convey the idea that that's the profile that you came from.

2. If you hit "Switch Position" the "Possible Duplicate" and "Your Ancestor" headings remain in place - that makes no sense - mind you it wouldn't make much sense if it were "Possible Duplicate" and "Original Person" or "Starting Person" and they stayed in position also. Err. Not really sure what to suggest here.

3. Because the direction in the browser version is changing and most patrons will be caught unawares unless FS tells them beforehand, I would suggest a big arrow going from left to right be put over the "Possible Duplicate" and "Your Ancestor" headings in the Stage 1 screen. The arrow conveys which way the data is going.

On the Stage 2 screen, "Switch Position" appears in the middle of the arrow so two separate arrows are needed - they still go from left to right, of course. In fact, two separate arrows might work on the Stage 1 screen.

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Adrian Bruce said: General:
1. What are the up and down arrows for? Will something appear there later if we open them up?

2. The layout feels a little wasteful of space but I'm not the one with poor eyesight - yet.

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Adrian Bruce said: Yes, I'd like a distance check as well between 2 birth events but I suspect a lot of the requisite data isn't there. Beside merging a profile with a birth event saying "Born 1 April 1801 England" and "Born 1 April 1801 York, Yorkshire, England" is going to be tricky to assess for mileage.

Would it be easier and more feasible to check the country?
"Born 1 April 1801 London, England" and "Born 1 April 1801 London, Ontario, Canada" can throw up a warning that the country is different so they might be separate ...

A warning on that idea is that "Born 1 April 1801 London, England" and "Born 1 April 1801 London, England, United Kingdom" really ought to match but I'm not sure how easy that is to program without creating false matches - such as "London, Middlesex, Ontario" matching "London, Middlesex, England".

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Jordi Kloosterboer said: I agree with your idea that the "starting person" may not even be related to you at all for many different reasons (like them being in laws of in laws or a different group of people with the same last name as a relative). Also I liked your comment of "so you can play around and do everything as wrong as possible. " :P I haven't tried it yet but will soon probably.

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Jordi Kloosterboer said: I'm sure they can put a bunch of if statements lol

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Gordon Collett said: Keep in mind that places can only be compared if they are standardized, that is, are associated with a place as listed in the places database and that that standard place text is really just a substitute for what the computer actually uses: the underlying geocode a.k.a latitude and longitude.

When you read "London, Middlesex, Ontario" as a standardized place name, the computer actually only sees: 42.9830, -81.2500.

When you read "London, Middlesex, England," it sees 51.5100, -0.1200.

That is what is behind the whole concept of standardization. The great circle distance between 42.9830, -81.2500 and 51.5100, -0.1200 is a straightforward, unambiguous mathematical calculation.

If interested, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great-c...

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Christine said: And bear in mind that many of the original LDS temple records do not list accurate locations; the person who did the temple work may have listed birth place as US, or England, or not even have listed a birth place. Many of those records are hanging out in family search and have not been combined with later records that list birth place or parents or spouses or children. Many of them only have baptism completed, with the other ordinances waiting, and still need to be merged.

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Juli said: Using names and dates instead of generic labels would solve the "switch positions" conundrum. The problem would be that on correct merges, they'd be identical a lot of the time. (Of course, if you're merging two completely-identical profiles, then it doesn't matter who's on which side....)

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ATP said: Thank you, Gordon Collett, for the beta link!

What a major change in the works! At last, a pedigree workshop design, for lack of a better term, on creating a family history by working from the pedigree chart to create and/or modify family group sheets. How easy it will be when implemented to click from one chart and find ancestors and their children with the number of sources attached to each individual! Looking forward to the various possibilities of how it can be used. I've been waiting for this, wondering if it would ever happen!

Thanks again, for the beta link!

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Paul said: Joe (Martel)

I know you read most of the threads, so would be grateful for your assurance that the developers of this feature will be made aware of the suggestions here. It would be very disappointing if they were ignored and in a few weeks time, say, the beta version is moved into the production model completely unchanged from its present form.

(Many thanks to Gordon for instigating this thread.)

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Gordon Collett said: I really like the way the name header box freezes at the top of the screen with the new merge and the new copy ID function for the page that makes it so a single click copies the ID and the screen doesn't jump when the "ID copied" bubble disappears. I assume that the new copy ID will make its way to all the pages in Family Tree eventually, that will be really nice.

However, the new "ID copied" notification sits on the screen so long - a full ten seconds - that the presence of the dismiss link is going to make people think they must dismiss that notice every time which will get them really annoyed with the extra click.

I would suggest that you shorten the display time to two seconds and get rid of the dismiss link.



Also, I realize the information is getting pretty long, but under the Family Section, it would be very helpful if each child's birth year and birth place could be displayed so that one does not have to open the summary card to check this on each one.



If the ID were moved next to the name instead of below it, then the year and birthplace could sit on the line where the ID is now.

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Justin Masters said: Thanks for the heads up /reminder (for me). I remember hearing about it via Ron 's copied web cast on YouTube a few days ago, but I was just walking in to work as it ended, so I forgot about it.

I suspect the format makes it easier for the small form factor use (phone) but I need dates and places for good merge comparisons.

I'll check it out!

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Justin Masters said: I found TWO BUGS on the source attachment portion of the beta site.

It is collecting the year and entered name of the place from somewhere else on the record, and not from the person or the place on the record it's supposed to come from.

It was here on this source:
https://beta.familysearch.org/search/...

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Justin Masters said: I found another error on the beta site for attaching sources. This has to do with the same person (which I didn't attach from the example above so people could test/verify it),

The URL is https://beta.familysearch.org/search/...



The link at the question marks points to https://beta.familysearch.org/tree/pe...
(no person)

As a matter of fact, I went ahead and tried to create the person, and I got a VERY odd error! (Pointing to the REAL person ON FAMILYSEARCH, *NOT* BETA, and he was NOT created until 2 days ago)




So there seems to be a cross-contamination of cookies (or history) or something, between the two sites.

Just so it's clear... I have to log in to each site when switching back and forth between them, so there's no way I can do work in beta and in production at the same time. (That's a GOOD thing!, since the ONLY indications I have that I'm on beta is the URL and the ITTY BITTY "beta" sign next to the logo.)

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Jessie Hearle said: I don’t see the same results you see. iOS Safari 13.3.1

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Gordon Collett said: To illustrate my last point above of the usefulness of including birth years and places on family members, here is a faked up example.

This looks like a reasonable merge at first glance:



Adding more information to this first step makes it clear, one would hope, that these do not match:

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Bosch said: I am completely agree, Gordon Collett, that that would be a great improvement.

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Robert Wren said: Does anyone know if there is a way to comment about proposed changes ON the "beta" FS Site? Or is this forum the only method we have? (Some good points made already, is it up to Joe Martel, et al, to forward them to the responsible group?)

Does FS have a group of 'selected' users testing these changes on the Beta site?

Or is the primary purpose of these beta changes, simply for FS employees to test them?

I just noticed when using "Switch Positions" the heading titles "Possible Duplicate" & "Your Ancestors" do not move, but now appear above the alternate positions of the previous view.

However, the whole idea looks like an improvement!!!! Hopefully it can prevent a few strange merges (after users figure it all out).

Here's the only article I found in FS Help on the subject: https://beta.familysearch.org/help/he...

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joe martel said: The teams responsible for Merge are aware of these threads. I believe these are close to being released so not sure what if any changes will be made. One of the difficult things is when different opinions are made and there is no consensus. So if you see some kind of agreement in the community it is helpful to provide a roll-up summary so the teams don't have to wade through all the chatter.

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Juli said: Joe, I think we all agree on two things: "ancestor" is almost never the right word, and we need dates on family members.

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Bosch said: Dates and places.

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Justin Masters said: If I may disagree...

Where our mission, mandate and commandment (as members of the church) is that our hearts are turned to our fathers, and theirs towards us for the salvation of all, I cannot think of a term more appropriate for us than "ancestors".

"Kindred dead" might seem appropriate, but I understand that the gathering of sources and information is often for people who I am not related to, but that any temple work I perform is for those whom have passed are related to me.

I do not wish to quibble over what the most appropriate pronoun might be, but I do not want to diminish the power that comes from the use of "ancestors".

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joe martel said: If the biggest issue is the word "ancestor, relative" then it sounds like the group is ok with the new beta Merge? (remember this word will also have to be localized, so there is a lot of give and take) To me, is the word good enough for the majority of users to understand what is being said.

Another post I saw somewhere suggested that user groups would have to agree (consensus) before believing something was ready to be released, (not that that will be enforced.) So I'm trying to understand if this group has that consensus.

For me the bigger issues that feedback would be useful for are in terms of missing, broken, or good aspects around:
- What information needs to be seen by the users
- Is the workflow of the Merge correct
- missing functionality of the merge
- ...

Thanks

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Gordon Collett said: The trouble is that there is nothing inherently powerful in the misuse of words.

If you look up the definition of ancestor anywhere, you will find that only your direct line back on a pedigree contains your ancestors. Your aunts and uncles are not your ancestors. None of your cousins of any variety are your ancestors. None of your in-laws are your ancestors. Only your grandfathers and grandmothers are your ancestors.

This means that the vast majority of merges we do are not for ancestors and a huge number are not even for relatives. It can be down right silly to be doing a merge for an accidental duplicate of your living grandson and have the column read "Your Ancestor."

I would vote for the heading to be "To Be Merged In" and "Base Individual."

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Justin Masters said: I have to laugh (at myself) because I've been TRYING to find a merge to do, and can't find people to do that with to look at it and throw in some comments (or help build concensus), so I'm kinda going off of other people's screenshots and comments. (I've already made comments about more info being needed to make a "healthy and wise" choice about merging, because it's a LOT tougher to undo it.

It would be nice if there were an arrow that shows the direction of the merge (I think I heard something about colors, but would be concerned over people who are colorblind).

I wish I had a few merges to do... so I could see and think about the overall user experience and interface.

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Gordon Collett said: Since the beta version is a playground, a sandbox, you can merge any two people you want. It has no effect on the real database. Or just take two minutes, create a duplicate, then merge it in. All changes in the beta version get discarded.

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Juli said: Localization is another point in favor of the solution I proposed further up this thread: use the names, IDs, and dates as the column headings. The only thing you need to translate/localize is the "Information in this column will be deleted" and "Information in this column will be saved" instructions. Calling it "your ancestor" is wrong, and worse, it's needlessly confusing.