Allow more than 4000 followed people and/or allow option to watch every record that has been added o

MarlenePitman

Over the last couple of years I've made in the order of 20,000 contributions to Family Search, including the recording of over 16,000 sources. Along the way I've chosen to watch/follow most of the people I've worked on, in order to be informed of new material, whether good or bad, and be able to review and action that material as appropriate.

This week I hit the 4000 limit, and find that very frustrating. It appears to be an arbitrary limit, presumably to avoid people following hundreds of thousands of people, but it now prevents me from following perhaps at most another 1000 people or so by the time I've worked through the rest of my areas of interest.

The advice from the chat line was to work around this by creating a second account - easily done and presto - another 4000 available to me, albeit with considerable inconvenience to work across the two accounts.

I understand there needs to be controls on numbers, but this control appears to work against the overall good management of the tree. Perhaps the number should be 'floating', ie in proportion to the contributions made, ie a person who hasn't done anything might have a smaller limit than someone who is actively contributing, and therefore has a need to watch for changes.

I note this matter has been raised before and am sure there are other diligent people who are also frustrated by the limit.

With all its potential issues, I have chosen to heavily commit to FamilySearch as I consider the benefits far outweigh the risks, but nonetheless the ability to manage the risks is somewhat curtailed by this limitations.

I would ask that the engineers consider a more realistic way to manage this, especially for those who make substantial contributions to the tree.

Brett .

Marlene

.

FYI

.

You are NOT alone.

.

A number of years ago now, I tried to "Download" MY "Ancestral" lines from 'FamilySearch' (when we had such ability), after some 6+ Hours and well over 200,000 Individuals (not to mention, "Couple"; and, "Parent-Child", Relationships), the "Download" FELL-OVER / CRASHED, I got NOTHING.

.

I totally understand your, frustration; and, angst ...

.

Some of my "Ancestral" Lines, go back a long (long, long, long, etc) way; and, have many "Branches".  

.

But ...

That said ...

.

What you propose, would most likely CRIPPLE the "System".

.

The "Load" on the "System" with EVERYONE allowed more that the current 4000 Limit; and, just some (not even many) using whatever the increased Maximum Limit was, would bring the "System" to 'its knees', make it so slow, to be utterly USELESS.

.

Many Users/Patrons just Watch/Follow the MAIN (line) individuals/persons in their "Ancestral" Lines, that is the best we can do and hope for at this present juncture in time.

.

The other thing that I do, is go through my "Ancestral" Lines on a semi-regular basis to check and see if there is anything NEW that I can "Add" or "Attach".

.

I would definitely NOT, follow that 'wayward' advice on ANY "Chat" Line, to create another (separate) 'FamilySearch' Account.

.

[ And, anyway for Members of the Church, you CANNOT have more than ONE 'FamilySearch' Account linked to your Church Membership number. ].

.

And, 'Yes', this matter of increasing the Limit of those being Watched/followed has been previously raised and debated over the years, with a FULL explanation as to WHY such CANNOT happen - even for the diligent, few.

.

MANY Users/Patrons are HEAVILY committed to ONLY using 'FamilySearch'.

.

I, for one, DO NOT use any "Third Party" Application - even, ones "Certified" to work with "Family Tree" of 'FamilySearch'.

.

I am sorry; but, the benefits, for the FEW, of what you propose, certainly DO NOT outweigh the RISK of CRIPPLING the "System", bringing the "System" to 'its knees', making it so slow, to be utterly USELESS.

.

In this present juncture in time, the MOST realistic way to MANAGE one's OWN "Ancestral" Lines, is to use one (or, more) of the "Third Party" Applications that are "Certified" to work with "Family Tree" of 'FamilySearch'; so as, to have your OWN personal and private "Database".

.

There are MANY (of us), over the MANY Years, who have made substantial contributions to the SINGLE "One" World "Tree" that is "Family Tree" of 'FamilySearch'.

.

Please remember, the needs of the MANY, must overshadow, the needs of the FEW (the latter, of which, I consider myself part of, in this instance).

.

Please DO NOT be discouraged, if the Limit for those being Watched/Followed, is NOT increased.

.

The Limit for those being Watched/Followed, MAY increase in the "Future"; but, now is not the time.

.

Just my thoughts.

.

Brett

.

Always the Optimistic Pessimist

.

ps:  I am NOT against the Limit of those being Watched/Followed, being INCREASED.

.

pps:  I am just trying to be realistic.

. 

Amy Archibald

This is my experience and not necessarily what you are wanting. Just letting you know that other people use the following feature differently.

I was following over 3,000 individuals and I asked a FamilySearch engineer to wipe clean all the people I was following last week so that I could start over. Now I'm following only 120 people so far. It is freeing. I was inundated with mostly good changes happening to those who I had added and fully sourced in the Tree over the past 5 years (since the Watch started). I am fully invested in those people I added and sourced. However, I no longer have the desire to know about little changes to my 4C1R, etc.

My list was so large that I couldn't do anything with it. There are actually 2 lists - one of who you are following and two - the list of changes to those people. You can only filter on the list of changes. You cannot manage the list of those you are following. Maybe someday in the future the software will have some management tools for managing the following list.

I hope you are able to find answers to the list you have and your desire to follow more people.

JeffWiseman

MarelenePitman,

I do have a suggestion that might work for you.

I also find that having a following list of everyone that I have done research on and added documentation to is a really good idea even if there is a LOT of evidence (e.g., 65 sources) proving who they are. 30%-50% of the changes made to people on my following list are either incomplete or wrong. E.g., there are many incorrect hints that are added and frequently merges made that are inappropriate. Having all the sources, Notes, Discussions, Reasons for Change, etc. does not fully protect these records from people screwing them up (although it certainly does help).

So anyone who “have chosen to heavily commit to FamilySearch” needs to have some external backup for the work they’ve done in the FSFT.

I use Ancestral Quest as a backup for all the work I do on the FamilySearch FamilyTree. When I finish working on a record in the FSFT, I will link to it from Ancestral Quest (if it is not already linked), and then sync all the data I want down from FSFT (e.g., all details, sources, notes, and in some cases attached memories). If the record is reasonably complete to uniquely identify that person, I add a colored tag to that record in AQ. If the information is spotty or there is some potential issues, I’ll not put the “Fairly Complete” colored tag on it.

At present all my AQ records that are linked to the FSFT are also on my “Following List”, so any changes made can very easily be seen by using AQ’s compare function to compare what you last viewed as OK (i.e., the record in your AQ database) with the newly changed records in the FSFT. Even if the record in the FSFT has been totally decimated, you have everything that you need to rebuild it in your AQ database.

Now to your particular issue:

I only have about 1000 names I’m watch…, er, FOLLOWING at present so the Recent changes to Following list is adequate for me. However, if that breaks or I reach the point where I need to “follow” more records than FS allows, AQ actually has a “Check for Changes” function built in that can run through your entire AQ database and for every record that is linked to a record in the FSFT, it compares the time stamps for when the record was last changed and makes a list of any that have mismatched time stamps. When you sync a record between FSFT and AQ, the time stamps are the same. If either is modified after that, the stamps won’t match and it will be placed on the list.

Although I’ve used this feature only occasionally, it basically works, although it can be a bit idiosyncratic. It is a bit overly sensitive in that you can get “False Positives” showing up that you’ll need to resolve. It also has the ability to select subsets of your tree (e.g., specific ancestral lines or the descendants of families). You might want to check it out.

BMWall

Re My Contributions, It's great that the system does my record keeping now. One little addition would be wonderful. How abt the ability to print a list, name and PID would be enough, of those added in the current year? It would be user responsibility to keep the list if they want to. I do not want to reserve them just to keep track of them. I want others to be able to do that. But when I need more names I'd like to select from those I submitted. Thank you.