Historic profiles - tree "cleaning" techniques; what are yours?

Incredibly helpful, thank you.

That's pretty much how I do it now. It took me a while to figure everything out, but the only data conflicts with my name on them are MPs that cannot be resolved by me.

I plan on being extra attentive to what I look at and double-checking for extra people that don't exist or siblings and children that don't belong in that tree. I usually stumble across them anyway, but now that we are organizing an effort to fix these problems, I will use more time to do that.

Geni needs to let everyone know that they need to resolve all the data conflicts and tree conflicts that they are responsible for. I see many of the same people are responsible for ongoing issues because they merge and do nothing else.

Right - they simply don't know to do more.

I was just thinking about this point from the project front page:

"New users often make this mistake because they don't understand that Geni works by connecting new profiles to existing profiles ..."

The traditional tree is "my" tree. In ancestry.com for example you add "to my tree."

Geni is revolutionary; there is no "my tree.". It's simply "connect my family group to the next step up the tree chain."

In the Anglo American tree I'm being able to do that now as early as turn of the 20th century at times.

Resolving data conflicts, you can only chose one, they give you no choice. If you just come across them, how do you know what is correct?

- You can select field by field
- the overview may have notes to refer to
- if not, research and add them

If you don't know or can't find the info, please don't resolve data conflicts. But that doesn't mean you have to just ignore them, either! You can always start a discussion from the Discussion tab in the profile to ask for help with whatever conflict exists... I've been doing this often since Erica taught me this little trick and it's a wonderful tool. Not only is there almost always someone who knows the answer or can teach me how to find it myself, but it leaves a "paper trail" in the profile so that others can see why things were done. That part is invaluable in saving us all time and trouble!

Also, I've recently committed to entering as much information as I can in the overview (About Me) for every profile I "touch" from now on. This can help prevent merge errors, resolve data conflicts, and generally provide a guide for others working in that area of the tree. I only wish I'd known how important it was to do this when I started on Geni! Learning curve, ack!

For sure, today I go back to fill in the few I added yesterday, and get back in to the "energy" (for want of a better description) of that area. The annoyance is, when you are "on a roll" adding in the tree, you cannot open the profile in a new tab, to fill it in, so I feel like I am up and down a bit, tree mode/profile and so on. I also copy and paste the final above about, into the about, so, the relationships all need to be added for that. I think that is where I let them slip, not getting back to all of them.

I agree, Sharyn! It would be a lot easier if we were presented with a list of profiles that had been merged at the end of the merge session. Sometimes, especially when there are a lot of profiles being merged, it's easy to forget or lose track of which ones need conflict resolution.

I usually check the Data Conflicts section of profiles I manage (and also for profiles I follow) every month or so and do a bunch at once. It's not the best way to do things as it's hard to keep details fresh in my mind weeks after I've moved onto another family, so it requires extra concentration to do it this way! I don't do this as a substitute for routinely handling conflicts as soon as I merge, just as a way of picking up any that may have fallen through the cracks. As powerful as Geni's merge tool is, I guess there's just no way to take the pain out of merging! ;-)

re: "It would be a lot easier if we were presented with a list of profiles that had been merged at the end of the merge session."

-- not just for the Historic Tree -- several times Curators have merged profiles with Private ones I manage and/or that are in my Max Extended Family ("Family Tree") -- Geni notifies of me of some, not all -- it apparently has a maximum it will report, the rest fall off -- and asking the Curator for a complete list has gotten me nowhere - apparently they keep no record of who asks for the merge nor of which records they merged. It would be really nice to be able to easily find and check out all the ones that were merged as part of a merging session.

Private User,
the problem is that it's rather hard to define a "merge session". A proficient user can merge 150-350 profiles starting from a single requested merge, all of this in a single "sitting". So manually keeping a list would be impossible, if we were to get anything done at all.

You CAN look at the Curator's OWN profile (or that of any user, for that matter), under the Activity tab. That SHOULD contain a complete list.

1) my quote was of Jennifer's suggestion, in the post just above mine --
( "It would be a lot easier if we were presented with a list of profiles that had been merged at the end of the merge session." ) --
she wanted Geni to provide such a list to help out folks in the Historic Tree - my comment was to the effect that it could also be used to help those of us in the Private area as well.

Shmuel-Aharon's comment seems to suggest it might be difficult for Geni to create such a list -- any suggestions from anyone - on how they could do it, or would it truly be impossible or ??

Shmuel-Aharon Kam (Kahn / שמואל-אהרן קם (קאן
RE: the suggestion to look at the Activity Tab on the Curator's profile -- unless the person is in My Max Extended Family, Recent Activity only shows Public Actions. Merges of Private Profiles are not included in what I can see in Activity when I look at the Curator's Recent Activity.
[yes, tried it -- merges of profiles I manage done less than a week ago are not included in what I can see on the Recent Activity listing of the Curator who did them, despite fact the listings I can see go back further than that]

I'm sorry it doesn't help with your problem, Lois, but it's a wonderful suggestion for the problem I've been experiencing (forgetting which profiles I need to Resolve Data Conflicts for after a merge session). I can check my own Activity feed! /duh Dunno why I didn't think of that, but thank you so much, Shmuel!

Oh, yeah, I'm always losing my "place." I'm finishing off work I started 2 years ago (hangs head).

Note to self: date stamp notes in profile & upload docs like a maniac.

:)

LOL! Yeah, I'm starting to date-stamp profile notes, too, if only because the holes in my head are getting bigger every day... ;-)

Wish we had the ability to document profile changes in a behind-the-scenes doc the way Wiki does it...

I go to my Merge Center to remind myself of Resolve Conflicts that I have failed to notice and complete during a session of a lot of merging. Of course that only helps if I am a relatives, manager or curator :)

I love how Erica Howton shares her "best practices". No matter how proficient, there's always more to learn.

Hatte Blejer, I would be lost without the guidance of Erica Howton and her "best practises".

I agree, Hatte, and Pam. What's most amazing about Erica's "best practices" is not just that she's developed these efficient and streamlined ways of working, but that she's taken time to document them for the benefit of others. I pepper her with questions and requests for help, and she always comes through. She's one heck of a mentor, and I, too, would be lost without her guidance!

Agree about Erica, and she bounces back with my directness, I like that as well :) Its nice to know you cannot offend, it makes for honest relationships.

I used to stay up all hours, because I could not get straight back in to the previous days work, so tried to get to completion. Completion never happens I am finding, so, I set the days work as the home tabs in the browser, "use current", that way, the browser opens at the work from the night before.

PS. I am house cleaning and sitting I the sunshine for a bit, will be back :)

I've tried all kinds of ways to "where was I?"

I'm coming around to Carole Pomeroy's best practice: upload the doc.

Even if I never finish ticking off facts or adding to more profiles mentioned, having the doc on the profile has been my "tree saver" more than once.

I also upload docs & images to projects for later use on profiles. If you use "go to URL" the original source is findable.

Something I do first is look at the Timeline tab. Everyone tends to forget about that one, but I find it enormously helpful for getting a quick sense of what is definitely wrong. Crazy birth dates, illogical geographic movements...it's all nicely laid out.

Also seemingly obvious, yet I feel too often forgotten: go to the Documents tab and see what the heck people used to get where they did. You can't rely solely on numbers next to "Sources" because so many people don't formally cite, so the documents are hidden away. I go through the documents -- and for historic profiles, there's usually *something* -- and evaluate the sources and try to piece together the logic behind what's on the profile. Is the additional set of parents due to two conflicting sources people used? Cool -- now I know because I looked right at them, saw how the user got there, can figure out which source is right, *and* can write a note explaining why the other source is wrong. It's like being a math teacher and working back through a problem a student turned in to see where they went wrong. It works.

If I didn't use a source but I think it's probably going to be useful, I lost it under a "Resources" heading. If it's a website, I link. I even sometimes will link trees I find on other sites under "Possible Leads to Explore" or some such.

I'll try to think of other things, but you guys hit on so many good ones! :) Showoffs. :P

Oh, regarding data conflicts:

If 15 people say London and one says Manchester, I really, really want to know about that Manchester theory before dismissing it. People often go with the most popular values or whatever is on the MP -- or even whatever is listed under a curator's name -- but so many times I've found that there's a real good reason someone has the odd duck, and that the majority response is due to some bad GEDCOM or whatever. The weird ones don't just come out of nowhere.

When I pull bad info out, I note the bad info and *why* it's bad. ("Some genealogies say his middle name was Michael. They are wrong because...")

And something I picked up from I think Sharon...if I have a question about a profile but I don't have the time, interest, or knowledge to address it myself, I make a discussion post. It makes a record of the question so it's not forgotten, plus most managers are going to get a notification about the board post and can come check out the query. If you just make a mental note to yourself or stick something in the About, well...good luck. :) This tactic has worked out well for me, even if all I do is post one line saying "I think this date is wrong and we should look into it when we have a chance." People see the notes and get interested. The only challenge I have sometimes is batting away Erica when she wants to fix the problem and I know she's already doing 5,000 things. :)

Focusing on the dissenting data is also one of my strategies. It works for opinions about who the parents were as well as dates and places. If 100 people say one thing, and one person says something else, there's a good chance the dissenter actually did some research instead of justing copying Internet genealogists.

Well, Ashley and Justin read my mind - focusing on the dissenting data is something I've been wondering about a lot lately! I hadn't reached a conclusion, but it's very cool to find out that there really is something to the idea.

This thread has become one of the most useful I've seen. Sincere thanks to each person who has taken the time to post a tip or technique.

Lately, once again, I have been working backwards. I have ben finding sources, finding that profile, and seeing that it was the source that was used in 2008 etc. and add the link. Some I have to say, are NOT that reliable.
I got a smart match, that "proved" a profile to wiki tree in my heritage, BUT, that link cited Geni as the source. We need to be careful of that.

Unknown Profile

and

Anne Mauleverer

Seems naming can be a problem, I am not going to do this merge, but, maybe someone could look at it please?

Above needs to be checked, maybe not even in the right place