Need for a new color for unreserved ordinances available (To reduce confusion of the ones reserved,

LegacyUser

Kathrine Beeder said: Details: I messaged you a few months ago suggesting if we could directly grab ordinances reserved and shared by other family members. Shortly after you added this ability!! I can't imaging I am the only one who suggested this. Now, one tweak which would make it more awesome. Right now ALL of the available ordinances are that pretty bright green. This gets tedious in that when I go through a family I many times find that they have left ordinances unreserved, shared or otherwise. Since all of the available ordinances are now the same color, I am constantly going through siblings, spouses, etc., of a family making sure all of the ordinances have been reserved and not just sitting. More often than not, now, the green ones are "reserved/shared", and not just waiting to just be reserved. It's making my impulse to just move on without being so efficient and diligent and check every record. It takes time to open each family member. ANYWAY, could you possibly add back another color indicating ordinances that are reserved by another, but available to retrieve?? Thanks!

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: Welcome to the community-powered public feedback forum for FamilySearch. FamilySearch personnel read every discussion thread and may or may not respond as their time permits. We all share an active interest in using the resources of this site and as users, we have various levels of knowledge and experience and do our best to help each other with concerns, issues, and/or questions.

This same complaint has been posted many times. The idea of a second shade of green to indicate that there are unreserved ordinances has been suggested and passed back up the line. As far as I know, nothing has been reported back down.

Jim Greene's advice:

We are no longer in a position where names submitted to the temple is more important than to have the ordinances performed. Therefore, while not changing the meaning we are changing the emphasis of the green temple. We need to think of it as "This ordinance is available for temple work to be performed." It does not mean "This ordinance is ready to be requested/reserved or submitted/shared with the temple."

LegacyUser

Kathrine Beeder said: I understand the emphasis of having the ordinances performed; that's what this is all about. But I cannot do the male ordinances and I reach out at my ward for anyone to do them. Sometimes I share them at the door of the temple; but I get the impression this is frowned on.

But I am talking about "finding the lost sheep" that for some reason people reserve part of the ordinances and leave behind other ordinances. i don't understand why?? These names are like my "flock". But it doesn't seem right to pass over these ordinances left unclaimed and not "reserve" them, where then I can watch over them. And continue to experiment.

Again, as I wrote before: "I am constantly going through siblings, spouses, etc., of a family making sure all of the ordinances have been reserved and not just sitting. More often than not, now, the green ones are "reserved/shared", and not just waiting to just be reserved. It's making my impulse to just move on without being so efficient and diligent and check every record. It takes time to open each family member."

It's potentially causing me to not be as efficient.

LegacyUser

Lorie Ann Allen Miller said: What does a green temple in familysearch now mean?

Jim Green's quote "This ordinance is available for temple work to be performed, not ready to be requested/reserved or submitted/shared with the temple," does not make sense to me. The ordinance is not necessarily available for temple work to be performed if there is a green temple.

Showing a green temple by familysearch when the name may be
*1) available unreserved or unsubmitted
2) available to be requested, already submitted by someone else,
3) available but not allowed to be submitted until 110 yrs has passed
*4)available because of possible duplication more research needed

To me the green temple now means--frustration!

This one change to green temples when names have already been submitted by someone else, has tripled at least my time in finding places to work on in my familytree.

The green temples do not mean anything anymore. If someone already submitted the name to the temple, why would I want my attention drawn to it by having a green temple show up? I am looking for work that needs to be done, not for work that has already been done.

If I want a name to take a family name to the temple I can just click on the "Take a Name to the Temple Button." I do not need a green temple to do this as it is confusing.

Now I already do a fair amount of fixing problems in the tree already, merging duplicates, adding resources, adding new people with their resources etc. so that the tree can be more accurate and so the hints will pop up better. This helps everyone.

But when I want to find people who need their ordinance work done, how do I now go about finding them? The green temple no longer works as a tool to help locate probable places where I may go and do more work for those needing temple ordinances.

Just yesterday I started on a new descendancy project and the first 30 green temples I clicked on had already been submitted by another patron! I stopped counting after that. Imagine clicking green temple after green temple--what a waste of my time and interest. It made me want to stop working on family history.

I eventually went to adding sources to people until by the sheer number of sources, I found some places in the family tree that needed some ordinance work submitted.

I felt like the mice in the psychological experiments when they must push a button to receive food. Sometimes food comes out and sometimes food does not. Initially they push the button constantly, but without reliable results, they eventually stop pushing the button and become depressed because what they do doesn't change when the food comes.

The green temple has lost its meaning and usefulness to me as a family researcher. This is tragic. The reason I chose to work mainly on familysearch and familytree in the first place, instead of ancestry.com was so that I could concentrate on submitting names for ordinance work for my very extended family.

Now I will have to rethink about how to best spend my time.

LegacyUser

Lorie Ann Allen Miller said: By the way a filter in the familytree and descendency view that would allow me to filter for "ordinances not submitted" to find those people would be helpful.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said:

Showing a green temple by familysearch when the name may be
1) available unreserved or unsubmitted
2) available to be requested, already submitted by someone else,
3) available but not allowed to be submitted until 110 yrs has passed
4)available because of possible duplication more research needed

The last two are incorrect.

1) Unreserved, but available to be reserved (subject to the 110-year provision)
2) Reserved and shared with the temple system

Item 3 in the list is incorrect. Permission must be obtained from a close living relative if they were born in the last 110 years. See https://www.familysearch.org/help/hel...

Item 4 in the list is incorrect -- Members cannot reserve ordinances if a possible duplicate has been detected. Also, members cannot reserve ordinances if at least one of the dates/places has not been standardized.

In these situations, the icons are orange, which indicates that the information needs to be updated or provided.

Finally, see my comments as well as Jim Greene's comment that I posted in my original reply.

LegacyUser

Kathrine Beeder said: So the decision to NOT change the color of "reserved" ordinances to be available be a different color from "ignored" ordinances to be different colors - is FIRM. Correct??

You referred me to your previous response: "We are no longer in a position where names submitted to the temple is more important than to have the ordinances performed. Therefore, while not changing the meaning we are changing the emphasis of the green temple. We need to think of it as "This ordinance is available for temple work to be performed." It does not mean "This ordinance is ready to be requested/reserved or submitted/shared with the temple."

I will continue to verify ordinances the way I have, regardless of how tedious it is. I'm a bit frustrated since I spend hours in the temple when I can, but it's not available right now. You can look at my account and see this. Many, many ordinances completed. I don't think I'm supposed to stop doing merges, adding sources, and verifying accuracy just because I have more names than I can possibly do myself.

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: But assuming that records which have been submitted to the temple are somehow "more complete" or "more correct' is totally wrong. There are many, many, many records that have been submitted to the temple that are in terrible shape. Many are shown in the wrong families. Many are different person records that have been erroneously merged. Ignoring them just because they have been submitted to the temple is a big mistake that many people are making based on this false assumption. Even if the colors were the same as before, using them to decide who to research and who not to is really not the best way to go about things.

If you want to find NEW names (i.e., those missing from the database), there are far better ways of going about it.

From Lorie Ann Allen Miller's comment's:

What does a green temple in familysearch now mean?

It means that the record now meets the minimum temple standard required so that it can be printed and taken to the temple for the work to be complete.

No more, No less. The same as it has always been when viewed from Ordinances Ready (you never saw red icons in Ordinances Ready for exactly the same reasons)

Of course it doesn't mean that the data is all correct. Continued refinement on records is important, but has Jim Greene has told us before, the temple standard for which records can be taken to the temple is not the same as our own specific desires for genealogical accuracy. That accuracy *IS* important and we need to continue improving it in the database. But the church doesn't want that holding up records from having the work done once the temple standard has been met (right or wrong).

Green means "take it to the temple".

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: My previous response may have come across more negative than I intended. Here’s some extra thoughts that may be useful in understanding this.

In order to have temple work done for an individual, the temple requires:

1) Evidence that they actually existed
2) At least one unique vital event
3) At least one relationship to somebody else

(Somebody from FS please correct me if I am missing something here)

So if you were to obtain only a marriage certificate, you would have:

1) Evidence that both the bride and groom existed
2) The marriage vital event (time and place) for BOTH the bride and groom
3) The couple relationship between the bride and groom.

At this point you have everything needed in order to do the B,C,I,E, and SS ordinances for two people. If the Marriage license had the parents listed, the SP ordinances could be done as well.

This is the entire basis for all the temple extraction work that was done in years past.

Now some other person finds a Birth record for a child that includes his mother’s name. You have:

1) Evidence that both the mother and child existed
2) The birth vital event (time and place) for the child
3) The parent-child relationship between the mother and child.

So B,C,I and E can be done for both mother and child. The child can also have SP done.

So this is the condition that a green icon represents.

But what if the bride in the first example happens to also be the mother in the second? Since we don’t know this yet, her ordinance work gets duplicated. As other children records show up in different places, the mother’s work gets duplicated again and again.

This is the entire reason that the FSFT was created in the first place. By mapping out ALL relationships that there are for each person, the duplication (and it’s associated wasted time that could be better spent on records that needed it) is reduced or eliminated. The process of temple work becomes far more efficient.

However, this new 4th criteria (i.e., that there are no duplicates of the record) is far too complicated to automate by computer, so the FS software looks for possible duplicates and just suggests them to let a human decide. But in order to identify duplicate records in the FSFT, those records must have FAR MORE information about them than is ever required to actually do the temple work.

So in a nut shell, by collecting all the information that we can on name records in the FSFT database, we are enabling the identification of duplicates of that person’s existence in other records so that they can be eliminated/merged.

Many of the records that have been previously shared to the temple only had the minimum data sources required by the temple (i.e., the only thing they had may have been from a single marriage certificate, such as in the examples I’ve given above). That means if nobody is vetting the data in person records that have been previously shared with the temple, they are more likely to be missed as duplicates in the system.

With so many folks not wanting to “waste their time” looking at names that were previously shared with the temple, they are handicapping the system’s ability to find duplicates, and thus contributing to duplicated temple work.

And this is only one of the problems it creates. Ignoring records that have been previously shared with the temple is not really a good idea.

LegacyUser

Kathrine Beeder said: Let me give you a very typical example: I am finding sources and attaching, and for whatever I am focusing on a family. I find some "sources" to attach. The person is a parent and has children. All of the family's "ordinances" have been completed, but I am efficient.

When I get to a child of the family, I notice a bright green box and the sealing to their spouse is sitting unattended. Their record is complete. I don't know why people disregard things like this?? So I grab the marriage and reserve it. Perhaps his record is complete, but something is not done like the endowment. Maybe it's waiting/maybe it's not. I then share it because I have so many and I am not a man, but it's there and I regularly review the status of all my people and once the groom's endowment is done by someone I can take the sealing.

I see more things like this than you may realize. Members of the family partially done, the record is complete, but they have moved on after only partially reserving and doing ordinances, and not reserving/sharing the others. That individual is forgotten until someone EFFICIENT comes along and snags them.

NOW, that ALL available temple ordinances are bright green, looking for these lost sheep is much more tedious, and luckily most people reserve all the ordinances. But not all. Now, to find these lost sheep, I am having to literally open each and every individual before I even know for sure what the status is: Lost Sheep, or Reserved but can be requested.

The tedious effort, and with probably 85-90% of them being reserved but not Lost Sheep, is causing me, and apparently others, to lose interest and perhaps get lazy and not be so thorough/efficient. Leaving our Lost Sheep abandoned even longer.

That is why this color is important to us. I am sorry other people are not as efficient and thorough. Sometimes I think maybe because more sources have become available and it wasn't there when they did their thing; but looking closer I know it was there and they only took care of part of the source. I guess they only care about their blood-line or something. And I understand your concern about accuracy, etc. i agree.

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: So, are you saying that records that have been previously shared with the temple can never be any of these "lost sheep" that you are talking about?

Because of how Ordinances Ready works, many records that have been shared with the temple only have a few ordinances done on them so far, and none of the remaining ones are reserved or in progress.

So if you are trying to find records that have only had part of their work done, and nothing else has been reserved for them, there are many records that have been shared with the temple that have this very condition.

Am I missing something?

LegacyUser

Cindy Hecker said: Ordinance ready will pick up those who are not shared with the temple so you don't always need to do that share with the temple step. You can do it but it is not required. The temple work will get done if the temple is green. The idea is green means take it to the Temple. It is a neat experience to be working with a new patron who wants to take a family name and now they see green temples (before many or most were shared with the temple)/

There are many other ways to work on lines (different strategies) to get dates right, find spouse and children, etc but just sorting by temple ordinances is not the focus. Many non members use the tree and they don't see ordinances at all.

Also you are allowed to do Sealing to Spouse and not wait for the required BCESP ordinances. It is best if you do them in order if you have them all reserved but you are not required to wait especially if like has been my experience, I have done the female ordinances but the male endowment is not done....usually still waiting because it is reserved by someone else and I know from experience Male endowments can take over 5 years. I can seal my female to her spouse and it will become effective when his ordinances are finally complete. Ordinances ready has been giving these sealing to spouse out without all previous ordinances complete.

There has been lots of talk about the green temple, you can read other discussions here. It has been proposed to make 2 shades of green so that might happen. But the reason for the change is take the names to the temple, not keep submitting or sorting which are submitted. Green temples will get their work done, shared or not.

LegacyUser

Cindy Hecker said: I agree with much of what you say and we all work in the FamilySearch tree different ways, people have obviously not like the green temple disrupting their work flow pattern but it does not make it a bad change.

I did want to add and I tried to find the link but I have been told and read the only requirements for temple work is a Name, a standardized date and a standardized location. No relationship is required as you stated above.

LegacyUser

Cindy Hecker said: Ok to add I found the FamilySearch article about what is required. https://www.familysearch.org/help/hel...

It does mention relationships, so I was wrong on that. But we also both neglected it has to be marked deceased and it has to have a sex listed as male or female.

LegacyUser

Amy Archibald said: On Ron Tanner's "Q&A with Family History Ron" on August 13th, he mentioned they are working on a separate icon for 90 day reservations. You can listen to this from minute 6:35 to 7:45 at this YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVOXc...

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said:

So the decision to NOT change the color of "reserved" ordinances to be available be a different color from "ignored" ordinances to be different colors - is FIRM. Correct??

We have not been informed of the decision, so there is no firm response that we users have been told.

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: I think that the "relationship" criteria is something that has been added in recent months since they discovered that it works so well in finding duplicates.

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: I think that the "relationship" criteria is something that has been added in recent months since they discovered that it works so well in finding duplicates.

LegacyUser

Gordon Collett said: When listening to Ron Tanner's presentation last Thursday, it was very interesting to listen to how he phrased the issue. He was very clear to state that the two different colors would be to differentiate between ordinances we can reserve and have two years to complete and those we can reserve and have 90 days to complete.

He said nothing about finding ordinances to share with the temple. He only talked about the time span to complete them.

It sounds to me that the focus will continue to be on find new people to add to Family Tree, adding all available sources to properly document and identify people, and completing ordinances.

LegacyUser

Kathrine Beeder said: I don't think my suggestion and reason are being understood. It appears to me that the bright green boxes pretty much cater to casual Family Search participators, that just want names now. I'm heading out in half and hour.

I am a person that spends a lot of free time attaching sources and verifying sources previously attached are appropriately attached. I ALWAYS check relationships. And I find lots of duplications that are not picked up by Family Search.

It appears that my first paragraph above is what your policy caters to, and people that are spending lots of time, are dedicated, and efficient, will have to adapt to the "nothing but bright green boxes" that mean multiple things at a glance; leaving it necessary to open that individual in order not to lose LOST SHEEP left behind by those casual participants that have gone before. Understood.

LegacyUser

Amy Archibald said: Ron Tanner has indicated that there will be a new icon that will differentiate between 90 day and 2 year reservation - green temple colors. This means that if someone has reserved and shared to the temple ordinances, these ordinances will have this new icon - showing that they are different than other green temple icons that can be reserved for 2 years.

You are asking in this thread: "Need for a new color for unreserved ordinances available (To reduce confusion of the ones reserved, but shared) "

What he is indicating is that there WILL be a new icon for those that are reserved/shared. This will help you distinguish those that are unreserved and available (for a 2 year reservation).

LegacyUser

Kathrine Beeder said: Thanks so much! I'm really not a trouble maker, but the additional color would be absolutely wonderful! Maybe Pink?! Ha! Ha!

LegacyUser

Amy Archibald said: He has stated that it is an icon change. I don't know anything about it being a different color.

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: That certainly sounds like a positive!

LegacyUser

Gordon Collett said: Kathrine, you state that you are "a person that spends a lot of free time attaching sources and verifying sources previously attached are appropriately attached. I ALWAYS check relationships. And I find lots of duplications that are not picked up by Family Search."

It sounds like you are doing great work and there is a bit of misunderstanding going on in this post. Based on your statement, it sounds like you were using the green icons as one small tool in the work you are doing for entire families. Others here have been concerned that you have only been doing the work you state if a person had a green icon and were leaving the rest of the family who had any other color in a mess.

I think what threw people was your statements like "When I get to a child of the family, I notice a bright green box ...." which implied that if the child did not have a green box, you would have just ignored the child who might have needed all sorts of improvement to his or her record, including needing hints attached that may have led to adding new people, who are completely lost sheep, to Family Tree.

The impression I have had from various statements is that part of the reasons for going to just the one green icon for both 2 year and 90 day reservations was to accomplish two things. First to get people to get these ordinances completed by personally going to the temple and second, to get people to focus less on individuals who will get their ordinances done eventually because they have a green icon and to focus more on people who will never get their ordinances done because they are not in the tree at all.

LegacyUser

Kathrine Beeder said: Yes. I know that people that are casual users of this site go in with only one purpose. Get a name fast for the temple - But I am going to do more Family Search someday; just not today. I find a lot of sources not completely attached to family members and the only thing I can figure out is they only care about their own bloodline, etc. I figure if I am there, do it right! I am doing the Lord's work and he deserves quality. I'm sorry I didn't communicate better. But being able to identify the difference will help. BTW: I frequently find ancestors with multiple generations with ALL of their ordinances done, but new sources. I attach them and do as good and accurate job as I can. Like I said, sometimes by spending time, I find duplicates, more complete information not on their detail but in their source, etc., that wasn't detected before. I try to do a good job.