Rules of etiquette for merges

In trying to resolve conflicts, I have dragged and dropped until I thought it was perfect, and then received a message that I did not have permission to add on to the file. This would be a file with no profiles with locks on them. What is the advantage of a lock on a profile anyway? You can't even resolve conflicts if there is a locked file in the area you are trying to resolve.

. What does that mean?

Harriet,

The lock on the profile means it is private and can only be viewed by the person who created it and their collaborators, family group or friends. I don't understand any reason why that is done in the "historical" tree (before 1750) either, except in the short term case of building the profile. Maybe others can answer that one better.

Very good point, Harriet. I always thought Ancestry was the source to go to, but since acquieing several family histories written from 1920 to 1970, I have found many discrepancies, plus, there's often conflicting into on Ancestry just like anywhere else. It's really hard to know what is really correct.
When I first started here, I also did a lot of questionable merges (didn't know they were at the time, but looking back I can see it) & have since tried to be much more careful & double check the facts before I do a merge.

Hi Harriet,

You are asking terrific questions that I've asked myself, so in the interest of hearing someone else's voice, I'll share what I've concluded.

To me, family trees start as a sketch. The farther back in time and the wider the tree, the less data you'll have, so you enter only what you do have.

This is the point of collaborating: your sketch is someone else's complete profile. More than that, your sketch maybe filled in a little detail no one else knew about (like the connection to YOU).

I am fine with sketchy profiles that flesh out with more and more information over time and merges. In fact, a couple of wonderful collaborators explained to me that the "main" profile (the one of the left when you're doing a compare) becomes more and more complete, and more and more accurate as a result of the merging process.

Everything entered in the "overview" tab percolates through merges and is never lost. So detailed sourcing information, if done, should be always visible and never over written. If source info is not referenced or attached to the profile as documents, the profile could be 1000% accurate -- but there is no more proof of it than any other internet source.

There is no such thing as authoring a profile and there is no copyright on it that I can see.

In terms of researching -- do it only for the people who interest you or when there's a relationship conflict. When you're sketching, an approximation is quite good enough to go "public" with.

Hope this helps.

I have also been guilty of trusting ancestry.com trees and then noticed very scetchy info. Just last night for example I was comparing ancestry to a researched genealogy tree on the Cyr family. People in ancestry have combined 3 sisters into one person. They show her as married to all 3 husbands and having kids all at the same time. Being Catholic they all have the same "first" name, which is really their church name. The 2nd name is the actual given name. Almost every catholic girl is Marie. The book I have kept me from messing up our big tree by merging all 3 Marie cyr's.

My solution is to create a discussion on the profile with conflicting birth and death information. I keep whichever date seems to be most likely, or most agreed upon (if there are no sources) as the official one, but in the discussion I list all the different dates. That way, if someone can back up their data, we can change it, and none of their research gets lost.

Similarly, for last names and first names that are similar, but have different spellings, I often put them both in the profile as (Jonsen / Johnson). That way neither profile owner looses their original data.

Sam,

The discussion on the profile is a great audit trail I hadn't thought of (then again, I haven't had anyone disagree with my data .... yet). That makes it like Wikipedia: a clear chain of how and why you arrived at your decisions available for review. Thank you for posting that.

I already use (Johntson) (Johnstone) in the name fields if there seem to be alternate spellings.

Linda and Darlene,

I have found ancestry.com trees fine *if* they are using / posting census data from ancestry.com as their basis. It's when you get further back (before 1820 if you need a rule of thumb) that it gets more problematic, with internet mistake after internet mistake repeating.

My 4th great grandfather was reported with the wrong wife (previously married name, not maiden name) on FIVE trees. It was a worldconnect site, which had free data fields available for comments, that shared the will information that made it clear.

Just goes to show you: accurate information wants to be free. :)

Erica Howton
You have given us a most elegant description of how collaborating and merging profiles brings knowledge to all of us.

I make heavy use of the "about me" tab. If I have a question about merging profiles, I click "decide later," and see if there's notes on either profile to guide me.

Private
Ancestry.com is only as good as the people using it to develop their view of their trees. We all have our own version of the truth. Each version is the truth, even though different. Most people do not deliberately enter false information.

The best sources remain impartial sources -- census report, church records, birth, death and marriage certificates. Take everything else with a grain of salt.

Welcome to the wonderful world of internet genealogy!

Maria,

Thank you for your kind words. I have a question for you. Is it a sign you're a geni-holic when you ask your profile, "who's your daddy?" Abijah Cornelius Ross, Sr. is making me crazy!

Erica Howton
Sweetie, I know how often you comment on discussion boards. You have it almost as bad as me! Have you ever gotten up at night to use the bathroom and then logged in to see what happened while you were sleeping? I have!

The "true" geni-holic meets someone, hears the last name, and starts thinking, he/she might be my 23rd cousin, 4x removed's wife's grandmother's cousin. And then, can't wait to get to computer to check it out!

Hugs, my fellow addict!

I was oblivious to all of this for the first few months of building my tree! Then you collaborators happened. Next thing you know, i'm in a cult! LOL.

Yes, Marie, I often get up in the middle of the night to check out new stuff on Geni! I have chronic insomnia & this is my "treatment"! I've only been at this about 7 months, got interested after I found several old family photo albums from the 1860s to 1880s & wanted to know how those who were identified were & see if I could figure out who any not indentified were. I've since become a total addict! I probably average 5-6 hrs a day between here and Ancestry.com. I have so many people on my tree I'm now trying to decide how many to include in the family history I'm putting together for a reunion this summer. So far, the stuff I've printed out fills two 3 in. notebooks & I haven't printed nearly all that I've saved!

what I do in the event of a data conflict is put the conflicting data in 'about me' for people to evaluate as they are looking at it.
I will also often put whatever sourcing I'm using there, so nobody has to go hunting.

As far as googling the data - if you are working on royalty, this will work, if you are working on the serfs and indentured servants - the vast majority - the only thing I have ever found 'googling' my family is bits and pieces of what I put up, there rest of it is not there.

A few observations:

Harriet, there is frequently no "proof" of which side is correct in a discrepancy. I've found cases where one official document will have a different date than a different official document, even when both were made during the person's lifetime, so there isn't always a "right" answer.

When I need to merge profiles, but there is a discrepancy in a date or location, unless one side is clearly way off, I will leave a note in the "About me" saying what the two claimed values are. That at least keeps all information around.

It really bothers me when people will have accounts marked as "private", when those accounts are way too old for there to be privacy concerns. I've marked all profiles I've added as "public", unless they are (a) alive, or (b) have living children.

Geni will frequently tell me about merge issues that I need to deal with, but when I try it tells me I don't have permission to do what needs to be done to fix it. I wish they would only show me the problems that they will let me fix.

Thanks for all the good tips, everyone. I had never thought of putting info into the "about me" area, but will do that in the future. I also just went through my "managed by" list & was shocked at how many profiles were private! I had never looked there. I've now changed all appropriate ones & am working on making sure all deceased persons are listed as such, then I'll go to all the duplicate profiles I found there (as many as 100 on several individuals, so that will take some time!)

Let no one ever say we don't follow direction. :)

I was paranoid about upsetting living fifth and whatever cousins who don't know me, so I entered many of them as "Living." They defaulted to "public" even thought I *thought* I had them all set as private. So it's a good exercise from the privacy point of view to go through the "managed by" list.

Even something as simple as Devore and St John.
I have cousins from teh same parents - some write it StJohn, others St John.
I have more distant cousins - some use Devore, DeVore, De Vore - make a note of hte options and people will know why the conflict is there.

This being Geni, if you have an intentional parent conflict, put that there as well so nobody goes 'well, I know the family, and I know THESE are the correct parents"
It's conflicting until Geni gives me the same relationship options everybody else gives me.

One thing I warn people asking to merge about - I mark the direct* line. This way I can tell at a glance which line I want. I have learned it has to be behind or it will foul the sorting, it must be on the first name or you may never see it.

If you see a strange mark like that - leave it on. Someone may have added it for a specific reason.

Can you t ell me more abvout the "about me," I don't think I know where it is.

Private
"About me" is accessed through the Edit Profile menu on the right side of the screen or from the Overview tab in the lower half of the screen. Anything you add in this section will show up on Overview tab. Here's one that I was recently working on --
Hannah Emily Burchett -- so you can see what we are talking about.

If you are the first one, you can simply click in the area to write things. If there is already data there, you will find the edit in the upper right hand corner, then just add your info below what's already there.

the best evidence is only evidence, not proof. my dad's birth certificate has 2 type errors - his name was supposed to be "donn" but they wrote "donald." 2nd, he was born on july 25, but the certificate says july 26! imagine - i have july 25 on my tree because we know that was the real day, but years later a researcher pulls the official birth certificate and says "oops - this guys was off by a day, let me fix it." at any rate, everything we enter is only as good as the source documents - and even legal documents aren't all that accurate either. darn!

Not to mention sometimes ancestors may have (gasp) lied to "officials" for reasons sensible, nefarious, trivial or all of the above. :)

there have even been instances of the doctor staying in town long enough to deliver the baby in Maine, then hopping into his car to start his vacation in Florida, doesn't bother to file the birth certificate until he has his Florida hotel room secure and voila! Your ancester's birth just changed from Jan 1 in New York to Jan 14 in Florida. Thank you Mr. Doctor.

Another one to watch out for - ALL of the sources say if you have to force it to make it fit, it probably doesn't.
Grandpa Pugh was born, raised, schooled, churched, and buried in Warren, Indiana. He died in Schenectady, New York.

According to the rules, this death statement should be disregarded as it just does not fit his pattern. there would be no reason for it.
Well actually... his eldest daughter had lived in Schenectady for years. Her second daughter's first son was born with a heart condition, he underwent open-heart surgery before he was a week old.
Granddaughter was going hysterical on the nurses - she thought her baby kept stopping breathing. Nurse was reassuring her that everything was fine, it was just new mother nerves - until the baby stopped breathing in her arms.
Seems the incision was infected, another operation, iffy if the baby would survive. (Grew up to become a soccor star). Grandma and Grandpa headed to New York to see the newest grandbaby before he died. Along the way Grandpa had several minor heart attacks which he hid from his wife because he knew what she would do and he would find his butt back in Indiana rather than seeing the new great-grand.
He couldn't hide the one he had at his daughter's house, and found himself in the same hospital as the Great Grand.
They sent his body home for burial.

But if you did not know the story, you would assume someone had placed the wrong death information in the record.

While I was working C-store, I had a young lady come in on her 21st to get her first legal beer. Trouble was her license said she had a month to go. Her explanation was that the DMV had simply made a mistake and changed 6 to 7 (June to July - easy enough to do.). I had to inform the disappointed child that I had to go by her license, and to take her BC to the DMV to have the ID corrected.

Erica - there is also they might have gotten so busy with everything they just weren't sure if it was last Wednesday, or Friday. Our ancestors weren't quite so.... anal... about exact dates as we are. Didn't matter as much back then/

Susie,

That's a great story, thank you for sharing it. I hope you added it to Grandpa Pugh's profile.

I heard a story that enchanted me. A friend's mother recently died. Now, she always played coy with her children about her age: "a lady never tells" and so on. Her "official" documentation was born 1934, but how exactly did she manage that and also manage to be the older sister to brothers openly in their 80s?

Wow just verified an interesting error. The Jean-Baptist Cyr Family tree which has been my bible in tracing ancestors has a mistake. A big one I believe. There are two Antoine Cyr's who happen to be uncle and nephew. Rufine Leblanc is said to be married to uncle on the tree. Located their marriage banns on ancestry.com - Rufine is married to nephew. This is the official tree of the Cyr family. I will contact the genealogist and send him the record if he is interested. Oh and my little sister was born on one day and her birth certificate lists a different day.

@Steven Smith
Genealogy is a lot like my profession -- financial planner. Everything we do is important but it art as much as it is science. Many of our facts are written on shifting sands.

Erica Howton
My grandmother's favorite line was that she was one year younger than Jack Benny, which made her a perennial 38.

@Susie Cunningham
That is a truly fun yet informative story. I agree with Erica and it should be on Grandpa's profile.

In our Salem County Historical Society, James Acton compiled several works and these were published. I thought it avoided a lot of errors when he just used the year with no month and day. This also covered a lot of babies born any time in the first 9 months after the marriage. The Descendants of Benjamin Acton and the Descendants of Colonel Edward Hall are two of them.

I found the about me place and even dreamed about it last night.

I do need to thank you for some very encouaging words about conflicts and merges.
I have been doing genealogy since 1980 when we lived in the Aleutians and I bought my first computer, a Mac Plus, way before internet. Genealogy was so important because I was isolated. People answered my letters because they felt sorry for my isolation, I am certain. I entered data on a PAF program from the Latter Day Saints. When I got a PC, and tried to import the data, I lost a lot of data, and got very discouaged. Even after thirty years, I am not terribly computer literate. But, I have terrific hard files because of how long ago I started. I think I will not live long enough to get all of my data and sources entered.
One fact I was so happy to discover was the father of Ephraim Gill Turner Esquire. In Lower Alloways Creek Township, records were kept in the home of the township clerk in about 1900. The records for Canton Baptist Church in Canton, NJ were also in his home. There was a terrible fire when gasoline was thrown in the heat stove mistaking it for kerosene. Mrs. Dawson perished from burns and all records were lost. No death certificate for Ephraim Turner, nor was one ever filed at Trenton. My Father says he and his brother were "taken boys" living in the Bradway home. Ephraim married one of the Bradway daughters. He was capable in all sorts of ways and for some reason was identified as Esquire. In the Salem newspaper I read one article that says all of his achievements are well known and will not be repeated here again. I cannot find any documentaion of the well known achievements. His parentage had been a mystery until I learned that he remarried in his eighties. I sent to Trenton and got a copy of his marriage certificate listing his father as David Turner. Wow! Again, I have a dead end, but an important fact learned.

@Harriet - using only the birth years - the problem I foresee there is two children born in the same year (I actually know someone whose sons are exactly 9 months apart)
You know how they used to follow the name pattern - my father, her father, my grandfather, her grandfather, my great....
but if the child carrying the name died, the next baby of the appropriate sex would bear it.
So you have John Smith born in Jan 1900, listed as 1900, She gets pregnant very soon after and this John Smith dies at 3 months, so she bears a son John Smith in Nov 1500.
Now you have John Smith - 1500 - 1500
John Smith 1700 - 1795 M Jane Doe, they had 10 kids
without either knowing the family stories or having the month how do you reconcile those two records?
For that matter, are they in the double-dating range, and if so which year is being presented?

I'll have to check and see if I added that story and the tear-jerker that followed it into his profile, thought I did, but.... when you have multiple tree sites.
(Oh, after he held that Great Grand, his daughter asked his wife if she was ready to go home. Had Grandmother heard what daughter did, she says she would never have left... Grandpa whispered Yes.
He died that night.
Is 1900 still