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Accelerate Your Genealogy through Collaboration
by
Chelsea Beattie
In
the past, genealogy was a task that required a lot of time,
money, and effort by the researcher; however, many new genealogy
services can now accelerate the process, find your lost ancestors
at a lower cost, and provide more complete and accurate data.
New innovations have removed many barriers and made the common
excuses for not getting started in the past obsolete.
We
have all been given the responsibility to complete our family
genealogy. In the April 1999 Annual General Conference Elder
Dennis B. Neuenschwander stated in his talk “Bridges and Eternal
Keepsakes” that “bridges between generations are not built
by accident. Each member of this church has the personal responsibility
to be an eternal architect of this bridge for his or her own
family.” Doing genealogy research by yourself is a hard task.
It becomes easier when we find a relative to collaborate with.
Collaboration is a way that we can bind family generations
together. Many of the genealogy services available today offer
a collaboration feature.
So,
what is collaboration? Collaboration is when people work on
the same project at the same time, each making changes to the
shared data, and finding who made the changes and when the
changes were made. Collaboration can be very worthwhile if
basic ground rules and common courtesies are followed. The
following are some ground rules to follow:
- Before you collaborate with others, organize
any information you have already gathered and try validate
as much of your own information as possible. Your collaboration
will be appreciated by others if you have your own information
to bring to the table.
- When collaborating, it is important to know the
difference between evidence and conclusions. Instead of
entering your conclusions first, look at your evidence
and make assertions from the evidence and further assertions
on top of those. In the end your evidence should support
your conclusions.
- Make sure you have detailed information on how,
when, and where you found your information.
- Invite and accept as many individuals as possible
to collaborate on your tree. The more people that collaborate
on the same family tree, the more accurate your family
tree will become.
- Make sure the genealogy program that you use
allows you to add, edit, and delete the unwanted information
inserted into your family tree
- Always check to see if your information is accurate
by going to the original family source
- You will generate better relationships with the
people you collaborate with by updating them about new
data found
Internet Tools
Because
using the Internet is the fastest and cheapest way to collaborate,
many use genealogy services currently found on the Internet. Sharing
is mostly done by the transfer of GEDCOMS. Be careful not to
just accept the research that has been done by others as your
own and never take credit for the research of others. Take
the time to contact people who have made research available
to make sure you have their latest research. Few things are
as frustrating to a researcher as seeing their outdated and
incorrect research proliferated by others. Two collaboration
programs available today are PAF Insight and OneGreatFamily. PAF
Insight integrates with the resources found at FamilySearch
to find matches for individuals in your family tree. You must
have a copy of PAF in order to get the most out of PAF Insight.
After matches are found, you will still have to perform the
matching and merging process within PAF to remove duplication.
OneGreatFamily
takes collaboration further by providing a common family tree
where everyone can see changes immediately and can see all
of the research that is being conducted by others. OneGreatFamily
also performs the matching and merging process automatically
to remove duplicate information from its database and to constantly
provide researchers with as much information as available on
their ancestral lines.
One
of the promises of OneGreatFamily is that you can meet and
collaborate with family from around the world. OneGreatFamily
is designed to allow members to communicate and work together
to build their family trees. Using the “Collaborate” feature
saves you time and effort. OneGreatFamily believes that collaboration
is essential to prevent duplication. “We are effectively ending
the frustration from the research duplication efforts that
have constantly plagued genealogy,” says Alan Eaton, president
and founder of OneGreatFamily.
Working
on your family tree in OneGreatFamily is by its very nature
collaborative. Whether or not you communicate with distant
family through email, you are still collaborating every time
you use OneGreatFamily. You are adding individuals to the human
family tree that will some day result in hints, merges, and
collaboration for others who are also using OneGreatFamily.
OneGreatFamily helps researchers verify information by providing
the names and contact information everyone who provides information
on a family tree.
President
Gordon B. Hinckley stated, “All our vast family history endeavor
is directed to temple work. There is no other purpose for it.” A
major concern with Church leaders today related to temple work
is duplication. Many times temple work is done, but no one
submits the dates to the ancestral files. Many early LDS ancestors
have had their ordinance work done as many as 10 times each.
OneGreatFamily,
PAF Insight, and other innovative services can help prevent
this duplication. PAF Insight helps researchers verify temple
ordinance information by matching information with the International
Genealogical Index (IGI). OneGreatFamily allows researchers
to see a graphical representation of the ordinance information
that has been submitted to its service. If the LDS religious
preference is active, those whose ordinances have been performed
appear in green boxes. Additional, temple sealings are represented
by green lines between spouses and parents and their children.
We
are all at different places in our genealogy, but remember
that we are all working towards the same goal, and that is
temple work. Collaboration is an essential tool that must be
used to accelerate this process and help prevent further duplication
of efforts. To learn more about One Great Family, click here.
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© 2004 Meridian
Magazine. All Rights Reserved.
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